UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

Microsoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/fiftyyearsofamerOOpoll 


FIFTY  YEARS 
OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

THE  NEW  YOKK  NATION 
1865-1915 


FIFTY  YEARS  OF 
AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

THE  NEW  YORK  NATION 

1865-1915 

SELECTIONS  AND  COMMENTS 

BY 

GUSTAV   POLLAK 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

@i)t  fitoerjride  J9ce^  CambribQe 
1915 


COPYRIGHT,   1915,  BY  GUSTAV  POLLAK 
ALL   RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published  December  IQ15 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

Part  I  of  this  volume  embodies,  with  various  addi- 
tions, the  substance  of  my  article  on  "The  Nation  and 
its  Contributors"  in  the  Semi-Centennial  Number  of 
the  Nation  (July  8,  1915).  Part  II  reflects  the  spirit 
of  the  Nations  comments,  from  year  to  year,  on  impor- 
tant questions  of  the  day.  Part  III  consists  of  twenty- 
four  representative  essays.  Hundreds  of  contributions 
of  similar  value  and  interest,  by  men  of  eminence  in 
widely  different  pursuits,  might  easily  have  been  selected. 

My  thanks  are  due  to  The  Macmillan  Company  for 
permission  to  quote  from  Rollo  Ogden's  Life  and  Letters 
of  Edwin  Lawrence  Godkin. 

GUSTAV   POLLAK. 

^  New  Yobk,  November  8,  1915. 


-*-  *   <LJ  _H    \  }*£, 


Vj^W 


CONTENTS 

I.  THE  NATION:  ITS  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    .      .      1 

II.  THE  NATION'S  VIEWS  FROM  YEAR  TO  YEAR     ...  85 

1865.  The  Dawn  of  Brighter  Days 88 

Changes  in  Population 89 

1866.  A  Counsel  of  Moderation 92 

The  Austro-Prussian  War  and  the  Rights  of  Private 

Property 94 

The  Atlantic  Cable 94 

1867.  The  First  Civil  Service  Reform  Bill         ....  95 
The  Meaning  of  American  Naturalization      ...  97 

1868.  American  Diplomats  Abroad 97 

The  Result  of  the  Impeachment  Trial      ....  99 

1869.  David  A.  Wells  and  his  Assailants 100 

The  Way  the  Income  Tax  ought  to  be  collected      .  101 

1870.  The  Legal-Tender  Decision 103 

American   Sympathies    during    the     Franco-Prussian 

War 104 

1871.  The  Revolt  of  the  Merchants  against  the  Tyranny 

of  the  Railroads 106 

1872.  The  Public  Reception  of  Mr.  Greeley's    Nomination  109 

The  Verdict  at  Geneva Ill 

"The  People"  and  the  Municipal  Government    .       .111 

1873.  Chief-Justice  Chase 114 

The  "Virginius" 117 

1874.  President  Grant's  Veto 121 

Alaska  Forty  Years  Ago 123 

1875.  The  Law  and  the  Facts  in  Louisiana 124 

1876.  The  Centennial  Celebration 126 

The  Hayes-Tilden  Campaign 128 

1877.  The  Decision  of  the  Electoral  Commission    .       .       .  130 

Civil-Service  Reform  Near  at  Hand 132 

Our  Mexican  Troubles 134 

1878.  The  Mind  and  Manners  of  the  Silver-Man   .       .       .136 
Resumption 138 

1879.  Some    Noteworthy    Facts    about    the     Forty-Fifth 

Congress 140 

1880.  General  Garfield  and  the  Bosses 143 

1881.  President  Arthur's  Problems 145 

1882.  A  "Spirited  Foreign  Policy" 148 


viii  CONTENTS 

1883.  Congressional  Fostering  of  Art 150 

1884.  The  Nation  and  the  "Cleveland  Scandal"      .      .      .  152 

1885.  Mr.  Lowell's  Official  Career 155 

The  First  Six  Months  of  President  Cleveland's   Ad- 
ministration      158 

1886.  Charles  Francis  Adams 158 

The  Lesson  of  the  Railroad  Strikes 161 

1887.  Restricting  Immigration 162 

1888.  The  British-Americans 165 

The  Problems  confronting  President  Harrison   .       .  167 

1889.  Courage  in  Politics 168 

1890.  Party  and  Other  Morality 170 

Optimists  and  Pessimists 172 

1891.  "Death  of  the  Republican  Party" 175 

1892.  The  Proper  Work  of  the  City  Club 176 

Mr.  Cleveland  and  Tammany 178 

1893.  The  Ethics  of  Campaign  Funds 180 

1894.  A  New  Era  in  American  Manufacturing  ....  183 

1895.  Jingo  Morality 185 

1896.  Bryan's  First  Candidacy 187 

1897.  The  Tariff  and  the  City 190 

1898.  Experience  in  Governing  Colonies 192 

1899.  A  Fresh  Phase  of  the  Indian  Question    ....  195 

1900.  The  Enemies  of  Civilization 196 

1901.  Tammany  and  "Respectability" 198 

1902.  Rewards  of  Public  Service 200 

1903.  Growth  of  the  Labor  Controversy 203 

1904.  A  Transit  of  Idealism 205 

Mr.  Hanna's  Public  Career 207 

1905.  John  Hay 210 

1906.  Immigration  and  the  South 213 

1907.  Working  up  a  War 215 

1908.  The  Despised  Moral  Issue 218 

1909.  Republican  Tariff  Reduction 220 

1910.  Philosophers  and  Guides 221 

1911.  The  Lawyer  and  the  Country 223 

1912.  Leaders  in  a  Democracy 225 

1913.  Our  Duty  to  Mexico 227 

1914.  Making  Life  Insurance  do  the  Most  Good      .       .       .  228 

1915.  A  Momentous  Decision 231 

III.  REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS 235 

Knickerbocker  Literature 237 

The  Tale  of  the  "Ripe  Scholar" 245 

Natural  Boundaries 254 


CONTENTS  ix 

Neutrals  axd  Contraband 259 

The  Mor\lity  of  Arms-Dealing 265 

Taine's  English  Literature 270 

Morley's  Rousseau 281 

Charles  Sumner 288 

Professor  Joseph  Henry 296 

William  Lloyd  Garrison 303 

An  English  View  of  American  Conservatism      ....  309 

The  "(Edipus  Tyr\nnus"  at  Harvard 325 

Responsible  Government  in  Germany 331 

General  Sherman 335 

A  Great  Example 344 

Helmholtz 348 

Gladstone 356 

Herbert  Spencer 374 

Daniel  Coit  Gilman 380 

Mark  Twain 388 

American  Scholarship 401 

Letters  of  Charles  Eliot  Norton 414 

Famill^r  Quotations 427 

The  California  Expositions 442 

INDEX 455 


FIFTY  YEARS  OF 
AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

i 

THE  NATION:  ITS  EDITORS 

AND  CONTRIBUTORS 


FIFTY  YEAES  OF 
AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

THE  NEW  YORK  NATION 

1865-1915 

Few  periodicals  in  the  history  of  journalism  can  claim, 
like  the  Nation,  to  have  preserved  their  original  features 
essentially  unchanged  during  fifty  years  of  continuous 
existence.  The  Nation  of  the  present  day  may  safely 
challenge  comparison  with  the  number  which,  on  July  6, 
1865,  was  issued  by  Edwin  Lawrence  Godkin,  as  editor- 
in-chief,  and  Wendell  Phillips  Garrison,  as  literary  editor. 
The  two  men  who  thus  stamped  their  individuality  on  a 
journal  prized  equally  by  two  succeeding  generations  of 
thoughtful  readers  must  indeed  have  possessed  rare 
qualities  of  mind  and  character.  Godkin  and  Garrison 
were  as  dissimilar  in  temperament  and  in  their  phi- 
losophy of  life  as  two  men  of  equally  high  ideals  could 
well  be,  but  they  supplemented  each  other  in  a  way 
which  made  their  joint  editorial  work  a  solid  unit. 

There  are  two  excellent  sources  from  which  to  recon- 
struct the  lives  of  these  remarkable  men  as  far  as  their 
connection  with  the  Nation  is  concerned,  —  Rollo 
Ogden's  "Life  and  Letters  of  Edwin  Lawrence  Godkin," 
and  J.  H.  McDaniels's  "Letters  and  Memorials  of 
Wendell  Phillips  Garrison."  Striking  tributes  to  their 
memory,  perpetuating  their  individual  traits,  were  re- 
cently paid  in  the  Nation  itself  by  Lord  Bryce,  W.  C. 
Brownell,  Professor  A.  V.  Dicey,  Judge  Charles  C.  Nott, 


4    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

and  others.  The  brief  outlines  of  Mr.  Godkin's  life,  prior 
to  the  founding  of  the  Nation,  are  as  follows: 

Edwin  Lawrence  Godkin  was  born  at  Moyne,  County 
Wicklow,  Ireland,  on  October  2,  1831,  as  the  first  child  of 
his  parents.  Both  were  of  English  ancestry,  and  his 
father,  the  Rev.  James  Godkin,  a  Presbyterian  minister 
of  literary  talents,  after  being  forced  from  his  pulpit  on 
account  of  his  espousal  of  the  cause  of  Young  Ireland, 
became  a  journalist  of  some  distinction. 

Young  Godkin  received  his  early  education  at  a  pre- 
paratory school  at  Armagh,  and,  at  the  age  of  ten  was 
sent  as  a  boarder  to  Silcoates  School,  Wakefield,  York- 
shire. At  school,  he  did  not  particularly  distinguish 
himself,  except  as  editor  of  a  magazine  published  in  boy- 
fashion.  Being  rather  delicate  in  health,  Godkin,  after 
leaving  school,  pursued  his  studies  for  some  time  at  home 
under  the  tuition  of  an  uncle,  the  Reverend  John  Edge. 
He  then  entered  the  classical  department  of  the  Royal 
Institution,  Belfast,  under  Dr.  (afterwards  Sir)  Thomas 
W.  Moffett.  In  1846  he  enrolled  in  Queen's  College, 
Belfast,  where  he  won  a  scholarship,  although,  in  the 
words  of  his  biographer,  Mr.  Rollo  Ogden,  "his  academic 
career  was  rather  promising  than  distinguished."  We 
are  told  that  "he  was  fond  of  dancing  parties  and  amuse- 
ments." After  graduating  at  Queen's  College  in  1851, 
he  went  to  London  to  study  for  the  bar  at  Lincoln's  Inn. 
Almost  immediately,  however,  he  found  employment  with 
the  Cassells,  a  house  with  which  his  father  had  been  con- 
nected, and  for  a  time  he  was  sub-editor  of  their  magazine. 

In  1853,  at  the  age  of  twenty-one,  he  published  his 
first  book,  "A  History  of  Hungary,"  a  work  of  consider- 
able merit,  of  which  years  later,  writing  to  Charles  Eliot 
Norton,  Godkin  said  characteristically:  "I  am  forced  to 
admit  that  the  philosophical  reflections  scattered  through 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS     5 

it  are  fearfully  profound.  Indeed,  on  looking  through  it, 
I  am  surprised  that  the  production  of  so  much  wisdom 
at  that  early  age  did  not  exhaust  me  more." 

In  the  same  year  in  which  he  published  his  first  book, 
Godkin  began  his  correspondence  from  the  Crimea  to  the 
London  Daily  News.  A  connection  was  thus  begun  that 
lasted  through  many  years  of  Mr.  Godkin's  life.  The 
Crimean  letters  and  those  which  he  wrote  later  from  the 
United  States  attracted,  as  they  deserved,  wide  attention. 

Mr.  Godkin  returned  from  the  Crimea  to  England  in 
1855,  and  for  some  months  of  the  next  year  was  on  the 
editorial  staff  of  the  Belfast  Northern  Whig.  In  Novem- 
ber, 1856,  he  came  to  America,  as  he  had  long  wished  to 
do.  After  undertaking  a  tour  of  the  South,  which  he 
described  in  a  series  of  remarkable  letters  to  the  Daily 
News,  he  settled  down  in  New  York  to  read  for  the  bar, 
to  which  he  was  admitted  in  1858.  In  1859  he  married 
Miss  Frances  Elizabeth  Foote,  of  New  Haven. 

After  a  tour  abroad  lasting  about  two  years,  he 
returned  to  America,  and  was  for  a  short  time  on  the 
editorial  staff  of  the  New  York  Times.  On  July  6,  1865, 
his  real  career  began  with  the  founding  of  the  Nation. 

The  project  of  establishing  a  high-grade  weekly  [says  Mr. 
Ogden]  l  was  in  Mr.  Godkin's  mind  long  before  the  day  of  real- 
ization. He  often  talked  of  it  with  his  friends  in  New  York  and 
Boston,  New  Haven  and  Cambridge.  Dr.  Gilman  recalls  his 
speaking  about  it  in  the  Yale  Library.  He  frequently  can- 
vassed it  in  his  correspondence.  To  him  the  dearth  was  evi- 
dent. He  felt  that  he,  with  the  talent  that  he  might  be  able  to 
enlist,  could  make  it  good.  In  the  periodical  press,  he  believed 
that  the  educated  men  of  America  were  not  fairly  represented. 
Daily  newspapers  were  hurried,  partisan,  clamorous,  inter- 

1  Rollo  Ogden,  Life  and  Letters  of  Edwin  Lawrence  Godkin. 


6    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

ested.  Weekly  publications  were  narrowly  denominational,  or 
else  gushing,  superficial,  ignorant,  inadequate.  How  to  give 
the  culture  and  sound  judgment  of  the  United  States  fit  voice 
was  the  question.  Mr.  Godkin  debated  it  with  many  friends, 
probably  oftenest  and  most  earnestly  with  Professor  Charles 
Eliot  Norton  and  that  alert  and  fertile  intelligence,  Frederick 
Law  Olmsted. 

Mr.  Olmsted's  connection  with  the  incipiency  of  the 
Nation  was  the  closest.  He  had  elaborated  in  1864  with 
Mr.  Godkin  the  scheme  for  a  journal  such  as  actually 
emerged  a  year  later.  Olmsted  died,  famous  as  the  land- 
scape architect  of  Central  Park,  in  his  eighty-second 
year,  August  28,  1903. 

The  plan  so  long  meditated  by  Mr.  Godkin  [says  his  biogra- 
pher] came  at  last  to  fruition  suddenly.  A  new  and  powerful 
ally  appeared  in  the  person  of  James  Miller  McKim,  of  Phila- 
delphia. This  philanthropic  abolitionist  had  the  interests  of  the 
freedmen  deeply  at  heart.  He  had  cast  about  to  find  a  news- 
paper in  their  behoof,  and  had  already  secured  backers  in  his 
own  city  and  in  Baltimore.  A  subordinate  motive  was  to  cre- 
ate an  editorial  position  for  Wendell  Phillips  Garrison,  a  recent 
graduate  of  Harvard,  and  at  the  time  literary  editor  of  the 
Independent,  who  was  about  to  marry  his  daughter.  Hearing 
in  New  England  of  Mr.  Godkin's  project,  McKim  proposed 
joining  forces.  This  furnished  the  last  and  decisive  push.  Nor- 
ton rallied  the  Boston  friends.  In  New  York,  Mr.  Godkin 
obtained  adherents.  All  told,  forty  stockholders  provided  the 
capital  of  $100,000.  So  great  a  number  assured  a  wide  interest, 
but  involved  difficulties  and  misunderstandings  about  policy 
and  control. 

Mr.  Garrison  was  but  twenty-five  when  he  became  Mr. 
Godkin's  associate.    He  was  the  third  son  of  William 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS     7 

Lloyd  Garrison  and  Helen  Eliza  Benson,  and  was  born  in 
Cambridgeport,  Massachusetts,  June  4,  1840.  His  boy- 
hood was  passed  amid  the  agitation  of  the  anti-slavery 
struggle,  of  which  the  paternal  home  was  the  very  centre. 
He  attended  the  Boston  public  schools,  —  the  Quincy, 
the  Dwight,  and  the  Latin,  —  and  entered  Harvard  in 
1857.  He  graduated  in  1861,  and,  after  two  years  of 
private  teaching  and  tutoring,  decided  to  devote  himself 
to  journalism,  his  first  work  being  on  the  staff  of  the 
New  York  Independent,  then  edited  by  Theodore  Tilton, 
which  he  joined  in  January,  1864.  The  following  year  he 
came  to  the  Nation. 

The  prospectus  issued  by  the  publishers  of  the  Nation 
clearly  set  forth  the  aims  of  the  paper.  It  said : 

ITS   MAIN   OBJECTS   WILL   BE 

First.  The  discussion  of  the  topics  of  the  day,  and,  above 
all,  of  legal,  economical,  and  constitutional  questions,  with 
greater  accuracy  and  moderation  than  are  now  to  be  found  in 
the  daily  press. 

Second.  The  maintenance  and  diffusion  of  true  democratic 
principles  in  society  and  government,  and  the  advocacy  and 
illustration  of  whatever  in  legislation  or  in  manners  seems  likely 
to  promote  a  more  equal  distribution  of  the  fruits  of  progress 
and  civilization. 

Third.  The  earnest  and  persistent  consideration  of  the  con- 
dition of  the  laboring  class  at  the  South,  as  a  matter  of  vital 
interest  to  the  nation  at  large,  with  a  view  to  the  removal 
of  all  artificial  distinctions  between  them  and  the  rest  of  the 
population,  and  the  securing  to  them,  as  far  as  education  and 
justice  can  do  it,  of  an  equal  chance  in  the  race  of  life. 

Fourth.  The  enforcement  and  illustration  of  the  doctrine 
that  the  whole  community  has  the  strongest  interest,  both 


8    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

moral,  political,  and  material,  in  their  elevation,  and  that  there 
can  be  no  real  stability  for  the  Republic  so  long  as  they  are  left 
in  ignorance  and  degradation. 

Fifth.  The  fixing  of  public  attention  upon  the  political  im- 
portance of  popular  education,  and  the  dangers  which  a  system 
like  ours  runs  from  the  neglect  of  it  in  any  portion  of  our  terri- 
tory. 

Sixth.  The  collection  and  diffusion  of  trustworthy  informa- 
tion as  to  the  condition  and  prospects  of  the  Southern  States, 
the  openings  they  offer  to  capital,  the  supply  and  kind  of  labor 
which  can  be  obtained  in  them,  and  the  progress  made  by  the 
colored  population  in  acquiring  the  habits  and  desires  of  civ- 
ilized life. 

Seventh.  Sound  and  impartial  criticism  of  books  and  works 
of  art. 

To  this  was  added  the  promise: 

The  Nation  will  not  be  the  organ  of  any  party,  sect,  or  body. 
It  will,  on  the  contrary,  make  an  earnest  effort  to  bring  to  the 
discussion  of  political  and  social  questions  a  really  critical 
spirit,  and  to  wage  war  upon  the  vices  of  violence,  exaggera- 
tion, and  misrepresentation  by  which  so  much  of  the  political 
writing  of  the  day  is  marred. 

The  criticism  of  books  and  works  of  art  will  form  one  of  its 
most  prominent  features;  and  pains  will  be  taken  to  have  this 
task  performed  in  every  case  by  writers  possessing  special 
qualifications  for  it. 

In  a  general  way,  Mr.  Godkin  sought  the  models  for 
his  paper  in  England,  but  there  were  essential  differences 
between  the  Nation  and  such  periodicals  as  the  Saturday 
Review  and  the  Spectator.  At  all  events,  the  type  of 
journal  Mr.  Godkin  had  in  mind  was  new  to  American 
journalism. 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS     9 

The  Saturday  Review,  established  in  1855  [said  Lord  Bryce],1 
was  for  the  first  ten  years  of  its  life,  and  to  a  less  degree  for 
the  first  twenty,  the  most  brilliant  journal  that  England  had 
known,  commanding  the  pens  of  an  extraordinarily  large  num- 
ber of  men  of  first-rate  literary  talent.  It  was,  however,  much 
stronger  on  its  literary  than  on  its  political  side,  for  in  politics 
it  was  always  critical  rather  than  constructive,  having  no  posi- 
tive views  to  advocate,  and  influential  chiefly  by  its  keenly 
destructive  cynicism  and  air  of  intellectual  superiority  — 
attributes  which  made  John  Bright  call  it  the  Saturday  Re- 
viler,  and  provoked  Thackeray  into  dubbing  it  the  Superfine 
Review.  The  Spectator  was  a  very  different  sort  of  organ. 
Unlike  the  Saturday  Review,  in  which  all  sorts  of  different  minds 
and  casts  of  opinion  were  visible,  the  Spectator  was  written 
almost  entirely  by  two  men,  Richard  Holt  Hutton  and  Mere- 
dith Townsend.  Hutton  was  the  greater  of  the  two,  and  indeed 
one  of  the  best  English  public  writers  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, but  Townsend's  vivacious  and  almost  reckless  audacity 
in  stating  his  views,  always  ingenious  and  often  paradoxical, 
helped  to  give  the  paper  a  distinctive  character.  Down  till 
1866,  when  it  parted  from  Mr.  Gladstone  on  the  question  of 
Irish  Home  Rule,  it  was  a  bulwark  of  the  Liberal  party. 

The  Nation  resembled  the  Spectator  in  devoting  its  opening 
pages  to  comments  on  current  events,  and  also  in  the  definite- 
ness  of  its  political  programme,  while  it  recalled  the  Saturday 
Review  in  the  pungency  of  its  tone  as  well  as  in  the  excellence 
of  its  literary  criticism.  It  was,  however,  no  mere  imitation, 
either  of  those  journals  or  of  any  other,  but  a  new  creation 
which  brought  new  elements  into  the  American  press. 

Mr.  Godkin  was  under  no  illusion  as  to  the  difficulty  of 
establishing  in  the  United  States  a  paper  such  as  he  had 
planned.    He  knew  that  he  had  to  create  his  audience 

1  Article  on  "Two  Editors"  in  the  Semi-Centennial  Number  of  the  Nation. 


10    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

and,  in  a  manner,  to  educate  his  contributors.  "It  is 
very  difficult,"  he  wrote  to  Olmsted,  "to  get  men  of 
education  in  America  to  handle  anything  with  a  light 
touch.  They  all  want  to  write  ponderous  essays  if  they 
write  at  all."  However,  he  hopefully  admitted,  "people 
of  the  lighter  sort  turn  up  every  week  unexpectedly." 

The  first  number  of  the  Nation  showed  how  high  Mr. 
Godkin's  ideals  as  to  the  conduct  of  his  paper  were  from 
the  outset,  and  how  well  he  had  succeeded  —  better  than 
he  seems  to  have  been  aware  himself  —  in  gathering 
together  a  few  men  who  could  handle  weighty  subjects 
with  a  light  touch.  Foremost  among  these  was  Charles 
Eliot  Norton. 

It  is  difficult  to  overestimate  the  aid  rendered  to  the 
Nation  by  Mr.  Norton  during  the  years  when  the  experi- 
ment of  conducting  a  journal  of  its  character  in  this 
country  was  on  trial.  "If  the  paper  succeeds,"  wrote  Mr. 
Godkin,  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Norton  (July  6,  1866), 
"I  shall  always  ascribe  it  to  you";  and  when  the  success 
of  the  Nation  was  assured,  Mr.  Godkin  could  say:  "Its 
existence  is  largely  due  to  the  support  and  encouragement 
which  you  gave  me." 

Norton's  contribution  to  the  first  number  of  the  Nation 
was  a  review  of  Richard  Grant  White's  first  volume  of 
his  edition  of  Shakespeare,  followed,  in  the  second  issue, 
by  a  memorable  essay  on  "The  Paradise  of  Mediocrities  " 
—  more  hopefully  patriotic,  as  we  now  see,  than  was  con- 
ceded at  the  time.  From  among  Mr.  Norton's  contribu- 
tions during  the  early  years  of  his  active  connection  with 
the  paper,  one  recalls  a  few  whose  very  titles  show  the 
variety  which  his  pen  lent  to  its  columns:  "Draper's  Civil 
Policy  of  America,"  "Tuscan  Sculptors,"  ""Waste,"  "The 
American  Lectureship  at  Cambridge,  England,"  "Sir 
Alexander  Grant's  Ethics   of  Aristotle,"   "Mr.   Long- 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    11 

fellow's  Translation  of  the  Divine  Comedy,"  "Mr. 
Emerson's  Poems,"  "The  Harvard  and  Yale  Memorial 
Buildings,"  "Female  Suffrage  and  Education." 

Among  the  other  contributors  to  the  initial  number  of 
the  Nation  were  Professor  E.  W.  Gurney,  of  Harvard 
("Matthew Arnold's  Essays  in  Criticism");  the  essayist, 
Charles  Astor  Bristed,  better  known  by  his  pseudonym  of 
"Carl  Benson"  ("Critics  and  Criticism"  and  "Club 
Life") ;  G.  P.  Marsh,  the  philologist  and  diplomat  ("Were 
the  States  Ever  Sovereign?"),  and  Henry  James,  father 
and  son,  the  former  of  whom,  well-known  as  a  Swedenbor- 
gian  philosopher  and  a  gifted  essayist,  wrote  on  "  Carlyle's 
Frederick  the  Great,"  the  latter  on  "The  Noble  School  of 
Fiction."  Professor  Gurney  held  the  chair  of  history  at 
Harvard,  and  for  a  time  taught  Roman  law.  As  Dean  he 
was  President  Eliot's  principal  adviser  in  the  extension 
of  the  elective  system.  He  was  for  a  year  editor  of  the 
North  American  Review,  after  Mr.  Lowell  and  Mr.  Norton 
withdrew  from  it.  His  contributions  to  the  early  numbers 
of  the  Nation  were  marked  by  his  extensive  knowledge 
of  the  classics,  modern  as  well  as  ancient,  and  his  wide 
reading  in  the  fields  of  philosophy,  law,  and  politics. 
George  Perkins  Marsh,  for  more  than  twenty  years 
United  States  Minister  to  Italy,  was  one  of  the  foremost 
American  scholars  of  his  time.  Equally  interested  in 
matters  of  philology  and  the  natural  sciences,  he  pub- 
lished a  "Compendious  Grammar  of  the  Icelandic  Lan- 
guage" and  a  remarkable  work  on  "The  Earth  as  Modi- 
fied by  Human  Action."  Besides  his  striking  series  of 
articles  on  the  subject  of  State  sovereignty  already  re- 
ferred to,  he  contributed  to  the  early  volumes  of  the 
Nation  a  number  of  papers,  entitled  "Notes  on  the  New 
Edition  of  Webster's  Dictionary,"  and  wrote  on  such 
subjects   as   "Pruning  Forest-Trees,"   "Agriculture  in 


12    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

Italy,"  "The  Mont  Cenis  Tunnel,"  "Physical  Science  in 
Italy,"  and  "The  Proposed  Revision  of  the  Bible."  At 
the  age  of  eighty  he  still  contributed  to  the  Nation  a 
charming  "Biography  of  a  Word"  and  a  letter  on  Lan- 
ciani's  "Aqueducts  of  Ancient  Rome."  He  died  in 
July,  1882,  at  Vallombrosa,  in  his  eighty-second  year. 

Other  writers  were  probably  represented  in  the  first 
number  of  the  Nation,  but  their  identity  can  no  longer 
be  established.  A  comment,  under  the  heading  of  "A 
Strange  Story,"  on  a  letter  written  to  the  Evening  Post 
by  a  chaplain  of  the  First  New  York  Volunteers,  fore- 
shadows the  campaign  against  General  Benjamin  F. 
Butler  waged  by  the  paper  for  so  many  years  with  extraor- 
dinary skill  and  effectiveness.  Mr.  Godkin's  own  article 
on  "The  Essence  of  Reconstruction"  and  his  paragraphs 
in  the  "  Week  "  sounded  the  keynote  of  the  Nation's 
campaign  on  the  Southern  question.  And  with  the  initial 
number  began  the  Nation's  long  fight  for  civil  service 
reform,  in  a  paragraph  on  the  need  of  protecting  the 
President  against  the  assault  of  "  office-seekers,  pardon- 
seekers,  delegations  and  busybodies  of  both  sexes,  who 
threatened  to  make  an  end  of  him." 

It  is  lamentable  [Mr.  Godkin  wrote]  that  some  way  cannot 
be  hit  on  of  sifting  the  President's  business  before  it  comes 
before  him.  This  is  done  to  a  certain  extent  with  his  letters, 
but  the  men  and  women  who  want  to  see  him  reach  him,  chaff 
and  all.  The  easiest  way  of  doing  it  would  be  to  render  access 
to  him  more  difficult.  Whether  this  could  be  arranged  without 
raising  doubts  of  his  "democracy,"  we  must  leave  it  to  others 
to  determine. 

It  took  fifty  years  and  the  determination  of  a  latter- 
day  President  to  realize  Mr.  Godkin's  prophetic  hope. 
Mr.  Godkin  seemed  reasonably  well  satisfied  with  the 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    13 

success  of  the  first  number  of  the  Nation.  He  wrote  to 
Mr.  Norton:  "No.  I  is  afloat,  and  the  tranquillity  which 
still  reigns  in  this  city,  under  the  circumstances,  I  con- 
fess amazes  me.  I  hope  you  will  like  it.  The  verdict  here 
seems  favorable." 

The  second  number  of  the  Nation  introduced,  in  a 
review  of  Praed's  poems,  a  new  member  of  the  staff, 
John  Richard  Dennett,  who  for  nine  years,  with  the 
exception  of  a  short  period  spent  at  Harvard  as  assistant 
professor  of  rhetoric,  devoted  his  rare  talents  entirely  to 
the  Nation.  He  was  but  one  year  older  than  Mr.  Garrison 
(twenty-six)  when  he  became  connected  with  the  paper, 
and  his  maturity  was  as  remarkable  as  that  of  the  literary 
editor.  The  experience  gained  by  Mr.  Dennett,  shortly 
after  his  graduation  from  Harvard,  on  a  cotton  planta- 
tion in  South  Carolina,  and  his  thorough  familiarity  with 
all  the  phases  of  the  Southern  question,  enabled  him  to 
act  as  the  Nations  correspondent  in  the  Cotton  States, 
and  he  wrote  in  this  capacity  for  the  first  two  volumes 
of  the  paper  a  series  of  articles  on  "The  South  as  It  Is," 
which  attracted  wide  attention.  The  first  of  these  letters 
appeared  in  the  third  number.  Through  the  whole  of  his 
short  career  the  shadow  of  the  disease  to  which  he  finally 
succumbed  was  upon  him.  "Of  what  he  might  have 
accomplished  with  a  constitution  better  adapted  to  his 
surroundings,"  wrote  the  Nation,  in  its  obituary  tribute 
to  him  (December  3,  1874)  "one  got  an  idea,  however 
faint,  from  his  extraordinary  powers  of  apprehension, 
which  we  have  rarely  seen  equalled  and  never  sur- 
passed." 

One  who  knew  him  well,  and  labored  for  the  Nation 
side  by  side  with  him,  wrote  of  Dennett  recently:  * 

1  Arthur  G.  Sedgwick,  in  an  article  on  "The  Nation's  Critics"  in  the  Semi- 
centennial Number  of  the  Nation. 


14    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

Everybody  who  was  near  him  in  time  at  Harvard  knew  him 
at  least  by  the  reputation  his  class  ode  made  in  1862  —  Lowell 
speaks  of  it  somewhere  as  having  made  a  marked  impression. 
He  had  very  wide  knowledge,  both  in  literature  and  all  "hu- 
mane" reading,  an  incisive,  and  at  the  same  time  delicate, 
humor,  and  great  fertility.  His  "South  As  It  Is"  remains  his 
most  enduring  monument,  likely,  I  fancy,  to  be  referred  to,  as 
time  goes  on,  as  the  most  valuable  contemporaneous  picture  of 
the  South  after  the  end  of  the  Civil  War.  This  was  his  smallest 
contribution  to  the  Nation.  He  really  wrote  the  Nation  in  enor- 
mous quantities,  paragraphs  for  the  "Week,"  political  editor- 
ials (he  had  an  extraordinary  amount  of  knowledge  of  the 
details  of  contemporary  politics,  and  also  that  exact  memory 
for  them  which  is  so  rare  and  valuable),  social  articles,  and 
book  reviews  of  remarkable  originality. 

Two  other  writers,  whose  connection  with  the  Nation 
as  more  or  less  frequent  contributors  was  lifelong, 
appeared  in  the  second  number  —  Daniel  C.  Gilman  and 
Octavius  B.  Frothingham.  It  is  interesting  to  notice  that 
the  future  president  of  Johns  Hopkins,  in  discussing  the 
projected  Cornell  University,  unconsciously  outlined  his 
own  plans  for  the  founding  of  a  university,  which  he  was 
later  to  carry  into  effect  at  Baltimore.  He  said  in  the 
number  of  the  Nation  referred  to : 

The  new  university,  we  presume,  will  not  be  fettered  by 
precedents,  but  will  mark  out  for  itself  a  new  path,  enlightened 
by  the  past,  but  adapted  to  the  present.  ...  It  may  be  intru- 
sive for  us  to  offer  a  suggestion  to  the  managers  of  the  new  uni- 
versity, but  we  cannot  refrain  from  doing  so  when  we  reflect 
how  constantly  in  this  country  one  error  is  repeated.  It  is  not 
bricks  and  mortar,  but  men  and  books,  which  constitute  a  uni- 
versity. We  delight  in  appropriate  and  decorated  architecture. 
.  .  .  But  we  trust  that  a  desire  for  suitable  edifices  will  not  pre- 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    15 

vent  a  supply  of  higher  wants.  Let  first-rate  teachers  be  first 
secured.  Let  no  expense  be  spared  to  secure  the  highest  educa- 
tional ability  which  the  country  will  afford.  Then,  as  the  schol- 
ars assemble,  as  the  courses  and  plans  of  the  university  are 
developed,  let  such  buildings  go  up  as  will  best  provide  for  the 
wants  which  have  been  created. 

Mr.  Frothingham  was  widely  known  as  the  head  of  the 
First  Independent  Liberal  Church  of  New  York,  at  one 
time  the  largest  congregation  in  the  city.  His  first  con- 
tribution to  the  Nation  was  a  review  of  Forsyth's 
"Cicero."  Another  clergyman  of  great  scholarly  attain- 
ments, Dr.  Joseph  P.  Thompson,  contributed  to  the 
second  number  of  the  Nation.  Dr.  Thompson,  in  addition 
to  filling  the  pastorate  of  the  Broadway  Tabernacle  in 
New  York  City  from  1845  to  1871,  was,  successively, 
editor  of  the  New  Englander  and  the  Independent,  and 
was  recognized  as  a  profound  student  of  Oriental  litera- 
ture. His  connection  with  the  Nation  lasted  until  his 
death,  in  Berlin,  in  1879.  Dr.  Noah  Porter,  president  of 
Yale  from  1871  to  1886,  also  began  to  write  for  the  Nation 
with  the  second  number. 

The  name  of  Arthur  G.  Sedgwick  is  found  as  a  con- 
tributor in  the  third  number  of  the  annotated  file  of  the 
Nation  (Review  of  Russell's  "Canada").  He  was  the 
youngest  of  the  remarkable  group  of  young  writers  whose 
promise  Mr.  Godkin's  keen  eye  so  early  discerned.  Sedg- 
wick wTas  not  yet  twenty-one  when  he  first  wrote  for  the 
paper.  A  melancholy  interest  attaches  to  the  reminis- 
cences which  Mr.  Sedgwick  contributed  to  the  Semi- 
centennial Number  of  the  Nation,  for  barely  a  week  after 
their  appearance  in  print,  he  died  by  his  own  hand 
in  Pittsfield,  Massachusetts.  His  association  with  the 
Nation  and  Mr.  Godkin  was  probably  closer,  and  cer- 


16    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

tainly  more  continuous,  than  that  of  any  other  member 
of  its  staff.  Mr.  Sedgwick,  in  the  article  referred  to,  thus 
outlined  the  nature  of  his  work  on  the  Nation: 

My  first  connection  with  the  Nation  as  a  contributor  was 
when  I  was  living  in  Cambridge  and  practicing  law  in  Boston, 
and  editing  with  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  (now  Justice  Holmes) 
the  American  Law  Review.  For  a  year,  I  think,  I  wrote  contin- 
uously for  the  paper,  sending  an  article  every  week  from  Cam- 
bridge, in  1868  or  1869.  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  its  editor 
—  a  source  of  lifelong  friendship  and  instruction  —  through 
my  brother-in-law,  Charles  Eliot  Norton,  who,  as  editor  of  the 
North  American  Review,  had  encouraged  me  to  try  my  hand  at 
writing,  and  who  was  one  of  the  most  interested  promoters 
and  contributors  to  the  Nation  from  the  beginning.  Afterwards, 
from  1872  on,  in  New  York,  I  had  a  much  closer  connection 
with  the  Nation,  being  in  the  office  for  several  years  with 
W.  P.  Garrison  and  J.  R.  Dennett.  It  was  during  this  period 
that  Mr.  Godkin,  after  the  death  of  his  wife,  went  to  live  in 
Cambridge,  remaining  there  for  some  two  years.  From  1881, 
for  some  three  years,  I  was  connected,  as  assistant  editor  of  the 
Evening  Post,  with  both  papers  at  the  same  time.  During  one 
summer  at  a  later  period  I  went  back,  at  Mr.  Godkin's  request, 
for  a  number  of  months  to  the  office  of  the  Evening  Post  to 
assist  editorially  while  he  was  away.  From  1865  to  1895  there 
were  years  when  I  wrote  nothing,  and  periods  when  I  may  say 
that  I  wrote  rather  voluminously,  not  merely  political  and 
legal  editorials,  but  social  articles,  paragraphs  for  the  "Week," 
literary  notes,  and  book  reviews. 

Mr.  Sedgwick's  brief  summary  does  far  less  than 
justice  to  his  work  for  the  Nation.  The  mere  quantity  of 
matter  contributed  by  him  to  its  columns  for  more  than 
forty  years  was  prodigious;  the  style  of  the  youthful 
writer  showed  marked  individuality.    It  was,  as  Mr. 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    17 

Brownell  expressed  it,  in  a  letter  to  the  Nation  written 
after  Mr.  Sedgwick's  death,  "the  acme  of  well-bred  sim- 
plicity, argumentative  cogency,  and  as  clear  as  a  bell, 
because  he  simply  never  experienced  mental  confusion." 
But  from  the  beginning  he  wrote  as  one  infused  with  the 
Nation  spirit.  What  was  true  of  him  was  true  of  the 
Nation's  contributors  in  general.  It  was  observed,  early 
in  the  history  of  the  paper,  that  a  peculiar  literary  flavor 
and  a  certain  uniform  elevation  of  treatment,  no  matter 
what  the  subject,  were  among  its  chief  characteristics. 
Mr.  Lowell,  in  a  letter  to  E.  L.  Godkin,  dated  September 
25,  1866,  remarked:  "Every  Friday  morning,  when  the 
Nation  comes,  I  fill  my  pipe  and  read  it  from  beginning 
to  end.  Do  you  do  it  all  yourself?  Or  are  there  really  so 
many  clever  men  in  the  country?" 

With  the  third  number  of  the  Nation,  Russell  Sturgis, 
an  authority  on  architecture  and  kindred  subjects,  began 
to  write  on  the  fine  arts,  his  contributions  continuing 
until  his  death,  February  11,  1909.  In  the  same  issue 
appeared  the  first  of  three  notable  papers  by  Henry 
Villard,  entitled  "Army  Correspondence." 

The  list  of  "regular  or  occasional  contributors,"  pub- 
lished in  that  number,  contained  the  names  of  Henry  W. 
Longfellow,  John  G.  Whittier,  and  James  Russell  Lowell. 
Whittier  wrote  a  poem,  "To  the  Thirty -ninth  Congress," 
for  the  issue  of  December  7,  1865,  but  it  does  not  appear 
that  either  Longfellow  or  Lowell,  interested  as  they  were 
in  the  new  venture,  felt  moved  to  contribute  to  the  first 
volume.  Lowell,  with  characteristic  humor,  and  with  his 
equally  characteristic  inclination  to  procrastinate,  wrote 
to  Mr.  Godkin  under  date  of  January  10,  1866: 

I  have  got  something  half  written  for  you  and  hope  to  finish 
it  to-day  —  some  macaronic  verses  on  the  editorial  sham-fight 


18    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

at  Richmond,  under  some  such  title  as  "Kettleo-Pottomachia." 
I  am  not  yet  sure  whether  it  is  not  dull.  However,  I  will  send 
it,  and  you  can  use  it  or  not,  as  you  like.  I  had  begun  an  essay 
on  "Autographs"  when  I  was  drawn  off  by  this.  Meanwhile, 
I  have  raked  out  of  my  desk  a  little  poem  which  I  wrote  for  an 
autograph  for  the  St.  Louis  Fair  two  years  ago.  (The  Muse 
does  n't  come  often  to  professors !)  I  do  not  know  that  it  has 
ever  been  printed,  and  don't  think  it  has.  I  send  it  merely  to 
justify  my  name  on  your  list  of  contributors.  I  will  send  you 
the  macaronics  in  a  day  or  two,  and  you  may  put  them  in  the 
fire  if  you  like. * 

Evidently,  the  "macaronics"  referred  to  are  identical 
with  the  poem  printed  in  the  Nation  of  January  25,  1866, 
under  the  title  of  "A  Worthy  Ditty.  Sung  before  the 
President  his  Excellency  at  Washington,  to  a  Barrel- 
Organ  Accompaniment."  The  "little  poem,"  entitled 
"WTiat  Rabbi  Jehosha  Said,"  appeared  in  the  previous 
number. 

Mr.  Lowell's  poetic  contributions  to  the  Nation,  though 
infrequent,  were  well-timed,  and  always  produced  a 
telling  effect.  They  were  generally  on  the  political  sub- 
jects of  the  day,  such  as  his  caustic  "The  World's  Fair" 
and  "Tempora  Mutantur,"  both  printed  in  August,  1875, 
and  his  "Campaign  Epigrams,"  in  the  number  of 
October  12,  1876.  In  a  different  vein  were  his  touching 
tributes  to  three  of  his  friends  —  the  astronomer  Joseph 
Winlock  (Nation,  June  17,  1875),  the  great  physiologist, 
Jeffries  Wyman  (September  10,  1877),  and  Edmund 
Quincy  (May  31,  1877),  himself  a  valued  contributor  to 
the  Nation  from  its  foundation.  Of  Mr.  Lowell's  prose 
writings  in  the  Nation  only  a  few  can  now  be  identified 
with  certainty,  such  as  a  letter  on  "Mr.  Emerson's  New 

1  Rollo  Ogden,  Life  and  Letters  of  Edwin  Lawrence  Godkin. 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    19 

Course  of  Lectures"  (November  12,  1868),  a  review  of 
Henry  James,  Jr.'s,  "Tales  and  Sketches"  (June  24, 
1875),  two  essays  on  "Forster's  Life  of  Swift"  (August  5 
and  26,  1875),  and  a  review  of  White's  "Natural  History 
of  Selborne"  (April  27,  1876). 

With  the  third  number,  the  Nation  reached  a  circula- 
tion of  five  thousand  copies,  and  Mr.  Godkin  felt  hopeful 
of  the  success  of  his  venture. 

We  have  got  so  much  money  [he  wrote  to  Olmsted]  that  I 
don't  think  we  can  fail,  unless  by  stupendous  mismanagement. 
$100,000  paid  up.  My  engagement  is  for  two  years,  with  com- 
plete control  over  the  editorial  department,  payment  of  con- 
tributors, etc.  .  .  .  Our  leading  political  aim  is  to  secure  equal- 
ity before  the  law  in  all  parts  of  the  Union;  all  others  are 
open  questions,  but  I  seek  to  have  everything  discussed  more 
temperately  and  accurately  than  is  usual.  "Social  articles," 
however,  are  my  great  need.1 

The  fourth  number  of  the  Nation  marked  the  advent 
of  two  writers  who  were  among  the  most  important  and 
prolific  of  all  the  contributors  to  its  columns  —  William 
Francis  Allen  and  Michael  Heilprin.  Allen  was  an  his- 
torical scholar  of  rare  attainments,  who  held  the  chair  of 
ancient  languages  and  history  in  the  University  of  Wis- 
consin from  1867  until  his  death,  in  1889.  The  Nation 
said  of  him,  in  its  obituary  notice,  that  he  was  perhaps 
the  most  constant,  if  not  the  most  voluminous,  con- 
tributor in  the  quarter-century  of  the  journal's  existence. 
Scarcely  a  number  had  appeared  without  something  from 
his  pen.  His  first  essays  were  political,  and  connected 
with  his  visit  to  South  Carolina  in  1865.  On  that  jour- 
ney he  noted  down  the  old  slave  songs  —  words  as  well 
as  music  —  which  he  afterwards  embodied  in  a  volume 

1  Ogden,  Life  and  Letters. 


20    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

("Slave  Songs  of  the  United  States")  that  has  remained 
the  best  work  of  its  kind.  The  range  of  his  interests  was 
remarkable.  He  wrote  in  the  Nation  on  minority,  per- 
sonal, or  proportional  representation,  on  civil-service 
reform,  on  city  government,  village  communities,  etc., 
and  he  reviewed,  with  competent  knowledge,  books  on 
ornithology,  political  economy,  English  literature,  and 
ancient  and  modern  history.  His  character  was  in  keep- 
ing with  such  mental  endowments.  His  accuracy  in  liter- 
ary matters  was  unfailing. 

There  was  a  certain  intellectual  and  moral  kinship 
between  William  F.  Allen  and  Michael  Heilprin.  The 
extent  of  Mr.  Heilprin's  scholarship,  as  revealed  in  his 
contributions  to  the  Nation,  was  during  his  lifetime 
known  to  comparatively  few.  On  his  death,  in  May,  1888, 
the  editors  wrote  of  him : 

How  great  is  the  loss  sustained  by  American  scholarship 
through  the  death  of  Mr.  Michael  Heilprin,  the  general  public, 
owing  to  the  man's  invincible  modesty,  cannot  know.  To  this 
journal  and  its  readers  it  may  fairly  be  pronounced  irreparable, 
so  largely  has  he  contributed  during  the  past  twenty  years  to 
whatever  reputation  the  Nation  may  have  acquired  for  literary 
accuracy  or  breadth  of  information. 

From  the  day  he  furnished  in  his  first  article  —  on  "The 
Crisis  in  Austria"  —  a  comprehensive  sketch  of  the 
political  history  of  the  Empire  since  the  revolution  of 
1848,  Mr.  Heilprin  gave  the  Nation,  in  the  words  of  the 
editors,  "the  benefit  of  his  extensive  command  of  all  the 
leading  tongues  of  modern  Europe,  besides  the  Latin  and 
Greek  classics,  the  Hebrew,  and  other  Oriental  speech." 
His  knowledge  of  history,  wrote  Mr.  John  W.  Chadwick 
{Unitarian  Review,  for  September,  1888),  was  "nothing 
less  than  an  epitome  of  its  universal  course."  And  as  in 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    21 

his  articles  on  European  affairs,  so  in  his  critical  reviews, 
Mr.  Heilprin  set  an  encyclopaedic  standard  for  the  Nation 
to  which  few  literary  periodicals  in  any  language  have 
been  able  to  conform. 

Mr.  Heilprin 's  extraordinary  intellectual  grasp  de- 
scended to  his  sons,  Louis  and  Angelo,  both  valued  Nation 
contributors.  The  three  articles  on  the  new  Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica  by  Louis  Heilprin  (Nation,  1911)  are 
undoubtedly  the  most  comprehensive  and  authoritative 
review  of  that  work  that  ever  appeared  in  print.  His 
brother,  the  naturalist,  Angelo  Heilprin,  contributed  to 
the  Nation,  among  various  scientific  articles  of  general 
interest,  an  account  of  his  visit  to  Martinique  (Nation, 
August  20,  1903),  where,  a  year  previously,  during  the 
catastrophal  eruption  of  Mt.  Pelee,  his  indomitable  cour- 
age and  his  rare  powers  of  observation  had  won  for  him 
universal  renown. 

The  work  of  creating  a  Nation  public  began,  as  we 
have  seen,  with  the  earliest  numbers.  From  the  start,  and 
until  they  laid  down  their  pens,  Mr.  Godkin  and  Mr. 
Garrison  had,  in  their  conduct  of  the  paper,  only  one  aim 
in  view  —  to  make  it  representative  of  the  most  enlight- 
ened American  opinion.  That  they  felt  it  necessary,  in 
the  beginning,  to  "educate  their  writers"  (as  Norton 
wrote  to  Lowell),  as  well  as  their  readers,  merely  added 
zest  to  their  task.  But  the  paper  was  fortunate  enough 
to  have  among  its  early  contributors  several  who  pos- 
sessed something  more  than  the  art  of  "weekly  journal- 
izing." Young  in  years,  but  with  all  the  maturity  and 
grace  of  the  master  of  the  craft,  Henry  James  and 
W.  D.  Howells  wrote  sketches  and  essays  for  the  Nation 
which  have  long  since  passed  into  literature.  The  first 
volume  contains,  from  Mr.  Howells's  pen,  such  reminis- 
cences of  his  Italian  days  as  "A  Pilgrimage  to  Petrarch's 


22    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

House  at  Arqua,"  "A  Visit  to  the  Cimbri,"  "A  Day  in 
Pompeii";  and  for  the  second  he  wrote  on  "Certain 
Things  in  Naples,"  on  "Massimo  d'Azeglio,"  "Men 
and  Manners  on  the  Way  from  Ferrara  to  Genoa," 
etc.  In  addition,  Mr.  Howells  contributed  in  1865  and 
1866  editorial  articles  to  the  columns  of  the  Nation. 
Henry  James,  Jr.,  was  barely  twenty-two  years  of  age 
when  he  wrote  his  article  for  the  first  number.  Among 
his  contributions  to  succeeding  volumes  of  the  Nation 
were  critical  papers  on  Miss  Braddon,  Walt  Whitman, 
Eugenie  de  Guerin,  and  Dickens's  "Our  Mutual  Friend." 

Until  a  few  months  ago  there  was  still  among  the 
living  one  of  the  most  valued  of  the  contributors  to  the 
first  volume  of  the  Nation  —  Professor  Thomas  R. 
Lounsbury,  who  utilized  his  experiences  in  the  Civil 
War  in  an  editorial  on  "The  West  Point  Military 
Academy"  (December  28,  1865).  He  subsequently  gave 
the  Nation  the  benefit  of  his  insight  into  military  matters, 
in  such  papers  as  "Ought  Soldiers  to  Vote?"  and  "The 
Militia  System";  among  his  contributions  to  literary 
criticism  were  reviews  of  "Dowden's  Shakespeare,"  "A 
Dictionary  of  English  Phrases,"  and  "Mrs.  Oliphant's 
England." 

Gradually  the  foremost  American  authorities  in  many 
fields  gathered  to  the  support  of  the  editors  of  the  Nation, 
solicited  or  unsolicited,  most  of  them  to  remain  true  to 
the  paper  throughout  life.  Among  these  earliest  friends 
—  to  mention  only  a  few  —  were  the  scientist  and 
philosopher,  Chauncey  Wright;  the  philologist,  William 
D wight  Whitney;  the  jurist,  Francis  Wayland;  the 
diplomatist  and  student  of  Russian  history,  Eugene 
Schuyler;  the  philanthropist,  Charles  Loring  Brace,  and 
the  art  critic,  W.  J.  Stillman,  widely  known  as  the 
United  States  Consul,  during  a  memorable  period,  at 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    23 

Crete  and  Rome.  His  relations  with  Mr.  Garrison  were 
of  the  most  intimate. 

Chauncey  Wright  gave  a  course  of  university  lectures 
on  psychology  in  Harvard  College  in  1871,  and  three 
years  later  conducted  there  a  course  in  mathematical 
physics.  Professor  William  James  wrote  of  him  in  the 
Nation  at  the  time  of  his  death,  in  September,  1875,  at 
the  early  age  of  forty-five:  "If  power  of  analytic  intellect 
pure  and  simple  could  suffice,  the  name  of  Chauncey 
Wright  would  assuredly  be  as  famous  as  it  is  now  obscure, 
for  he  was  not  merely  the  great  mind  of  a  village  —  if 
Cambridge  will  pardon  the  expression  —  but  either  in 
London  or  Berlin  he  would,  with  equal  ease,  have  taken 
the  place  of  master.  ...  As  little  of  a  reader  as  an 
educated  man  well  can  be,  he  yet  astonished  every  one 
by  his  omniscience,  for  no  specialist  could  talk  with 
Chauncey  Wright  without  receiving  some  sort  of  instruc- 
tion in  his  specialty."  Wright's  contributions  to  the 
Nation  included  articles  on  "Speculative  Dynamics," 
"Sir  Charles  Lyell,"  "McCosh  on  Tyndall,"  and  "Ger- 
man Darwinism." 

Eugene  Schuyler's  varied  diplomatic  career  was  inter- 
estingly reflected  in  the  articles  and  reviews  furnished  to 
the  Nation  during  the  quarter-century  of  his  connection 
with  it  as  a  frequent  contributor.  He  began  to  write  for 
the  paper  with  its  ninth  number,  and  a  week  before  his 
death,  on  July  16,  1890,  as  Consul-General  of  the  United 
States  at  Cairo,  the  Nation  had  a  brief  contribution  from 
his  pen.  He  wrote  on  "The  Progress  of  Russia  in  Asia" 
not  long  before  he  was  made  Consul  at  Moscow,  and 
during  all  his  subsequent  changes  of  residence  —  at  St. 
Petersburg,  where  he  was  Secretary  of  Legation;  on  his 
travels  in  Central  Asia ;  at  Constantinople,  where  he  was 
Consul-General;  while  he  was  Consul  at  Birmingham, 


24    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

and  as  Minister-Resident  to  Greece,  Servia,  and  Rumania 
—  he  continued  to  write  for  the  Nation.  His  most  im- 
portant work  is  his  two  volumes  on  Turkestan. 

The  foreign  correspondence  of  the  Nation  assumed 
from  the  beginning  the  character  it  has  ever  since  main- 
tained. Edward  Dicey,  for  many  years  editor  of  the 
London  Observer,  sent  his  first  letter  to  the  Nation  in 
August,  1865,  and  Auguste  Laugel,  a  noted  contributor 
to  the  Paris  Temps  and  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  began 
in  December  of  that  year  a  series  of  letters  which  ranged 
for  a  period  of  forty  years  over  a  vast  field  of  French 
literature  and  political  history.  Laugel's  connection  with 
the  United  States  dated  from  the  Civil  War,  during  which 
he  accompanied  the  Orleans  princes  who  served  on 
McClellan's  staff.  He  died  in  November,  1914,  at  Paris, 
at  the  age  of  eighty-four.  Friedrich  Kapp,  one  of  the 
most  prominent  of  the  German  patriots  who  sought  our 
shores  after  the  Revolution  of  1848,  and  whose  works  on 
early  German-American  history  are  of  lasting  value, 
acted,  after  his  return  to  Berlin  in  1870,  for  many  years 
as  the  Nation's  Berlin  correspondent.  His  connection 
with  the  paper  began  with  the  first  volume,  to  which  he 
contributed  articles  on  Bismarck  and  the  Prussian  con- 
stitutional crisis.  Dr.  von  Hoist,  the  eminent  author  of 
the  "Constitutional  and  Political  History  of  the  United 
States,"  who  first  began  to  write  for  the  Nation  in  1869, 
became  one  of  its  foreign  correspondents  after  his  return 
to  Europe  in  the  seventies.  Jessie  White  Mario,  a  noble- 
souled  Englishwoman,  married  to  one  of  the  Idealist 
leaders  of  the  risorgimento,  was  for  forty  years  the 
principal  Italian  correspondent  of  the  Nation.  Another 
valued  writer  from  Italy  for  many  years,  after  his  with- 
drawal from  Cornell,  was  Willard  Fiske,  widely  known 
for  his  Petrarchan  collections.  The  polyglot  Karl  Hille- 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    25 

brand  wrote  occasional  letters  from  Florence,  outdone 
in  absolute  mastery  of  a  foreign  idiom  by  the  Pole, 
E.  Gryzanowski,  whose  comments  on  Italian  events  and 
philosophic  discussions  of  certain  aspects  of  the  Franco- 
Prussian  War  ("International  Ignorance,"  "Popular 
Notions  of  Prussia,"  etc.)  are  among  the  most  brilliant 
pages  of  the  Nation.  Conspicuous  among  the  corre- 
spondence from  the  British  Isles  were  the  London  letters 
of  Lieutenant-Colonel  Robert  D.  Osborn,  who  had  made 
India  and  Afghanistan  his  special  province,  and  the  first- 
hand discussion  of  Irish  matters,  as  keen  and  farsighted 
as  it  was  patriotic  and  humane,  sent  by  Alfred  Webb 
from  Dublin.  Leslie  Stephen  also  wrote  much,  for  a 
number  of  years,  on  British  topics.  That  the  Nation  was 
so  long  privileged  to  retain  on  its  list  of  London  con- 
tributors the  names  of  Lord  Bryce  and  Professor  A.  V. 
Dicey  is  one  of  its  chief  distinctions.  It  is  more  than 
forty  years  since  the  Nation  printed  the  first  contribu- 
tions of  James  Bryce  and  Professor  Dicey.  The  number 
of  June  18,  1874,  contained  the  former's  review  of 
Cleasby  and  Vigfusson's  "Icelandic  Dictionary"  —  pos- 
sibly not  the  first  of  his  contributions  to  the  paper.  It  is 
safe  to  say  that  few  important  contemporaneous  events 
in  British  public  life  and  the  deaths  of  few  British  leaders 
in  politics,  literature,  and  science  have  been  left  uncom- 
memorated  in  the  pages  of  the  Nation  by  its  distin- 
guished English  contributors. 

The  editorial  sanctum  where  so  much  important  work 
was  being  prepared,  presented  a  scene  of  singular  sim- 
plicity and  repose.  Mr.  W.  C.  Brownell,  who  in  1879 
became  a  member  of  the  editorial  staff,  has,  in  his  article 
on  "The  Nation  from  the  Inside"  (Semi-Centennial 
Number)  admirably  rendered  the  spirit  which  prevailed 
in  the  Nation  office. 


26    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

Crossing  Beekman  Street  some  time  in  1879  from  the  old 
World  office  to  the  old  Nation  quarters,  and  establishing  myself 
at  the  third  desk  in  the  editorial  rooms  of  the  latter,  was  to  me 
an  event  of  more  moment  than  if  I  had  changed  hemispheres. 
It  was,  of  course,  much  more  than  graduating  from  daily  into 
weekly  journalism,  though  that  in  itself  was  desirable  enough 
in  the  case  of  one  whose  first  eight  years  out  of  college  had  been 
an  experience  of  much  variety  and  interest,  no  doubt,  but  one 
containing  an  element  of  drudgery  that  had  finally  lost  any 
disguise  of  novelty.  Moreover,  the  World  office  was  no  longer 
what  it  had  been  in  the  days  of  Mr.  Marble,  most  appreciative 
of  chiefs  and  most  captivating  of  men.  And  the  weekly  in  ques- 
tion was  the  Nation,  association  with  which  would  have  been 
the  acme  of  any  newspaper  man's  ambition  who  had  distinctly 
literary  predilections.  It  was  certainly  undreamed  of  by  me 
when  the  good  Stedman,  always  on  the  lookout  for  opportu- 
nities of  beneficence,  hearing  Mr.  Godkin  speak  of  a  vacancy 
in  his  office,  introduced  me  to  him,  and  so  paved  the  way  for 
me  to,  if  not  paradise,  at  least  a  veritable  Land  of  Beulah. 

To  me,  at  any  rate,  the  Nation  had  always  worn  a  halo.  I 
used  to  read  it  in  college  —  what  it  contained  that  I  was  up  to 
—  and  try  unavailingly  to  think  the  Round  Table,  a  short-lived 
Democratic  venture,  a  real  rival  to  it.  Then  in  early  Park  Row 
days  I  had  known  Dennett,  who  was  an  intimate  of  some  of 
my  own  circle  on  the  World.  And  Dennett  was  from  a  literary 
point  of  view  the  most  remarkable  talent  New  York  journalism 
has  ever  had;  see  Mr.  Godkin's  memorial  of  him  in  "Reflections 
and  Comments,"  in  which  he  speaks  of  Dennett's  death  as  be- 
ing an  irreparable  loss  to  the  Nation.  Acquaintance  with  Den- 
nett would  have  keyed  up  any  young  writer's  standards.  His 
articles  were  fluid  rather  than  articulated,  and  perhaps  they 
would  have  gained  in  effectiveness  if  they  had  had  more  "  argu- 
ment." But  his  genius,  which  was  unmistakable,  was  wholly 
untinctured  with  ambition,  and  he  wrote  as  if  to  please  himself, 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    27 

though  he  could  have  had  no  severer  critic.  Of  course,  the  sub- 
stance of  what  he  wrote  was  commensurate  with  his  rare  ca- 
pacity and  solid  attainments;  it  is  hard  to  hold  one's  hand  in 
speaking  of  these.  But  his  form  was  dictated  mainly  by  fas- 
tidiousness. I  remember  his  following  a  proof  once  to  the 
printing-office  to  change  "cheerful"  into  "cheery,"  as  the  epi- 
thet for  some  rascal  or  incompetent  he  had  been  writing  about. 
What  could  be  "neater"  than  his  article  on  "Knickerbocker 
Literature,"  whose  writers  "we  remember  as  forgotten"?  In 
brief,  the  opportunity  of  following  in  his  footsteps,  however 
longo  intervallo,  was  so  stimulating  as  almost  to  overcome  the 
diffidence  it  inspired. 

The  moral  atmosphere  of  the  office  was  ideal.  I  mean  more 
in  the  extended,  and  not  alone  in  our  specific  English  sense, 
though  in  the  latter  it  was  perhaps  even  more  marked.  There 
was  not  only  no  temporizing,  compromising,  compounding 
with  candor,  in  either  major  matters  or  in  trifling;  there  was 
no  partiality  or  ingenuity  or  bland  indifference  by  which  the 
devil  may  be,  and  so  often  is,  whipped  around  the  stump. 
There  was  in  the  Nation's  field  and  conception  of  its  function 
no  temptation  to  anything  of  this  sort,  to  be  sure,  which  consid- 
eration may  conceivably  qualify  its  assessment  of  merit  on  the 
Day  of  Judgment  —  a  day  when  we  may  hope  the  sins  of  daily 
journalism  will,  in  consequence  of  the  same  consideration,  be 
extended  some  leniency  —  but  certainly  cannot  obscure  the 
fact  of  its  conspicuous  integrity.  There  were  people  then  — 
as  now  —  that  complained  of  its  fairness;  which  involved,  to 
my  mind,  the  most  na'ive  attitude  imaginable,  since  it  was  the 
Nation's  practice  that  had  provided  the  objector  with  his  cri- 
terion of  fairness  in  journalism.  Of  course,  he  might  assert  that 
this  was  only  a  way  of  saying  that  the  paper  made  extraordi- 
nary claims  which  in  his  estimation  it  failed  to  justify;  but  this 
was  verbiage,  the  fact  being  as  I  have  stated  it. 

But  I  also  mean  by  moral  atmosphere  the  peace,  the  serenity, 


28    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

the  gentleness,  the  self-respect,  the  feeling  of  character,  that 
pervaded  the  office.  We  seemed,  to  my  sense,  so  recently  filled 
with  the  reactions  of  Park  Row  phenomena,  "to  lie  at  anchor 
in  the  stream  of  Time,"  as  Carlyle  said  of  Oxford  —  which,  ac- 
tually, we  were  very  far  from  doing;  there  was  never  any  doubt 
of  the  Nation's  being  what  is  now  called  "a  live  wire,"  espe- 
cially among  those  who  took  hold  of  it  unwarily  —  as  now  and 
then  some  one  did.  Mr.  Garrison  shared  the  first  editorial 
room  with  me.  Mr.  Godkin  had  the  back  office.  The  publica- 
tion offices  were  in  front,  occupied  by  the  amiable  Mr.  St.  John 
and  his  staff,  which  included  a  gentle  and  aristocratic  colored 
bookkeeper  who  resembled  an  East  Indian  philosopher  — 
plainly  a  Garrisonian  protege.  The  silence  I  especially  remem- 
ber as  delightful,  and  I  never  felt  from  the  first  the  slightest 
constraint;  Mr.  Garrison  had  the  courtesy  that  goes  with  active 
considerateness.  The  quiet  was  broken  only  by  an  occasional 
interchange  of  conversation  between  us,  or  by  the  hearty  laugh 
of  Mr.  Godkin,  whose  laugh  would  have  been  the  most  note- 
worthy thing  about  him,  if  he  had  not  had  so  many  other  note- 
worthy characteristics;  or  by  a  visit  now  and  then  from  Arthur 
Sedgwick,  in  my  time  not  regularly  "on"  the  paper,  who  al- 
ways brought  the  larger  world  in  with  him  (the  office  ivas  per- 
haps a  little  claustral  as  a  rule),  or  the  appearance  of  Earl 
Shinn  with  his  art  or  dramatic  criticism  —  both  the  best  writ- 
ten, if  not  also  the  best  we  have  ever  had  in  this  country,  and 
the  latter,  I  think,  so  distinguished  as  to  be  unique. 

Of  course,  there  were  visitors,  contributors  and  candid 
friends,  but  mainly  we  worked  in  almost  Quakerish  tran- 
quillity five  days  in  the  week  during  my  incumbency. 

All  this,  however  accurate,  does  not  convey  an  idea 
of  the  influence  exercised  by  Mr.  Garrison  in  the  building 
up  of  the  Nation's  reputation  for  scholarship.  How  did 
it  happen  that  a  young  man  of  twenty-five,  from  the 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    29 

moment  the  paper  was  started,  was  able  to  make  the 
literary  part  an  unapproached  model  of  excellence?  By 
what  art  did  he  succeed  in  ever  widening  the  circle  of  his 
eminent  contributors,  in  so  many  diverse  fields,  and  in 
retaining,  for  the  paper  and  for  himself,  the  friendship  of 
so  many  men  of  widely  differing  characteristics?  The 
answer  may  be  found  in  the  illuminating  pages  of 
Professor  McDaniels's  memorial  volume. 

In  speaking  of  Mr.  Garrison's  letters  to  Nation  con- 
tributors Mr.  McDaniels  justly  remarks  that  they  admit 
us  to  the  editor's  workshop  — ' '  they  reveal,  on  the  whole, 
the  secret  of  his  extraordinary  fitness  for  his  profession, 
his  attention  to  detail,  his  painstaking  accuracy,  his  un- 
wearied interest  in  everything  pertaining  to  his  craft." 

He  had,  for  example,  prepared  most  of  the  material  for  an 
exhaustive  treatise  on  punctuation  and  syllabication,  which 
began  with  the  usage  of  Latin  and  Greek  manuscripts  and  em- 
braced a  synopsis  of  the  most  careful  practice  in  French,  Ital- 
ian, German,  and  English.  .  .  . 

Of  his  larger  gifts  and  fitness  for  editorship,  the  Nation  itself 
is  a  sufficient  monument.  His  apprenticeship  began  early.  As 
a  matter  of  course  his  collegiate  standing  was  very  high,  and  he 
carried  off  from  Harvard  College  an  adequate  and  serviceable 
preparation  for  his  future  work.  He  took  a  catholic  interest  in 
a  wide  range  of  subjects,  from  geology  to  Greek  literature.  At 
the  very  period  when  Mr.  Charles  Francis  Adams  was  a  voice 
crying  in  the  wilderness  for  the  modern  languages,  Mr.  Garri- 
son came  away  with  an  accurate  and  sufficient  introduction  to 
German,  French,  and  Italian  literature  —  so  intimate  and  vital 
that  it  is  witnessed  repeatedly  in  his  verses,  his  correspondence, 
and  his  editorial  work.  At  the  same  time  he  practiced  his  pen 
in  the  Harvard  Magazine,  he  corrected  proof  in  the  office  of  the 
Liberator,  and  he  managed  to  find  time  to  supervise  the  educa- 


30    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

tion  of  his  brother  Francis,  a  service  of  love  and  duty  that 
could  never  be  forgotten.  He  was  therefore  not  a  journalist 
by  accident.   He  swept  all  this  experience  into  his  net. 

Mr.  Garrison's  unfailing  tact  in  making  allowance  for 
the  proverbial  sensitiveness  of  writers,  coupled  with  a 
firm  insistence  upon  the  requirements  of  his  paper,  was 
the  wonder  of  those  who  were  privileged  to  work  near 
him. 

Copiousness  [says  Mr.  Brownell]  was  naturally  interdicted 
to  the  Nation  in  any  case.  Its  field  was  universal,  and  its  space 
was  limited.  Brevity  was,  therefore,  a  necessity,  and  yet  the 
essay-like  character  of  much  of  its  matter  tended  to  fulness. 
Mr.  Garrison  circumvented  this  with  positive  genius,  and, 
though  never  interfering  with  their  freedom  of  opinion  in  any 
task  he  had  assigned  them,  with  what  probably  seemed  ruth- 
lessness  to  those  contributors  who  needed  room  to  turn  around 
in. 

And  Mr.  Garrison  "circumvented"  much  more  than 
the  exigencies  of  space.  The  Nation  wanted  men  of 
independence  as  well  as  authority  to  write  for  it  and  this 
independence  turned  not  rarely  against  the  Nation  itself. 
More  than  one  eminent  scholar,  supreme  in  his  field,  and 
therefore  indispensable  to  the  Nation,  refused  to  write 
any  more  for  a  paper  which  had  taken  liberties  with  his 
style;  another  gave  similar  notice  because  Mr.  Garrison 
had  omitted  a  Greek  quotation  in  a  footnote  —  yet  a 
charming  letter  of  exculpation  from  him  never  failed  to 
soothe  the  wounded  pride,  and  the  irate  contributor 
returned,  in  time,  a  greater  admirer  of  the  paper,  and 
certainly  a  warmer  friend  of  its  literary  editor,  than  ever 
before. 

But  while  Mr.  Godkin  and  Mr.  Garrison  were  fully 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    31 

prepared  to  cope  with  the  difficulties  inherent  in  the  plan 
of  the  Nation,  they  met  in  the  very  first  year  of  its  exist- 
ence with  obstacles  which  they  could  not  have  foreseen. 
The  stockholders  had  guaranteed  Mr.  Godkin  complete 
independence  in  the  conduct  of  the  paper,  but  soon  dis- 
senting opinions  arose  among  them;  some,  headed  by 
Wendell  Phillips,  did  not  approve  of  the  Nation's  policy, 
and  the  heaviest  stockholder,  Major  Stearns  of  Boston, 
even  charged  its  editor  with  bad  faith.  Needless  to  say, 
the  accusation  had  no  real  basis  in  fact.  Mr.  Ogden  men- 
tions it  only  in  order  to  show  "what  superadded  diffi- 
culties Mr.  Godkin  had  to  confront  in  founding  the 
Nation."  But  he  was  determined  to  succeed,  or  at  least 
to  continue  as  long  as  the  Nation  represented  his  ideals. 

He  threw  himself  into  the  work  unsparingly.  Those  who 
knew  him  only  in  later  life  would  be  surprised  at  the  mastery 
of  printing  detail  and  business  statement  which  he  showed  in 
his  frequent  letters  to  Norton.  Nothing  escaped  him.  He  was 
fertile  in  suggestion;  quick  and  docile  in  acting  upon  advice. 
Various  plans  were  tried  in  the  course  of  the  first  year  in  the 
hope  of  putting  the  Nation  on  its  feet  financially.  Olmsted 
was  brought  in  for  a  time  as  associate  editor.  The  experiment 
was  made,  in  the  second  volume,  of  a  semi-weekly  issue.  The 
price  was  raised.  The  size  was  changed.  But  the  end  of  the  first 
year  saw  nearly  all  the  capital  drawn  upon.  Virtual  liquidation 
followed.  A  faithful  few  stood  by;  the  rest  of  the  stockholders 
were  bought  out.  Mr.  Godkin  took  over  the  property,  throw- 
ing up  his  contract  for  another  twelvemonth,  and,  instead 
of  the  Nation  Association,  the  proprietors  were  thereafter, 
E.  L.  Godkin  &  Co.1 

The  charge  of  being  a  "foreigner,"  and  therefore  in- 
capable of  editing  a  paper   like   the  Nation,  did   not 

1  Ogden,  Life  and  Letters. 


32    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

seriously  disturb  Mr.  Godkin's  equanimity.    In  a  letter 
to  Norton  he  wrote  (January  15,  1866) : 

Bowles  of  Springfield  told  me  last  week  that  he  heard  the 
subject  discussed  at  a  dinner  party  in  Boston  at  which  it  was 
said  that  "an  Englishman  might  be  fit  for  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  but  not  to  edit  an  American  newspaper."  I  said  the 
joke  was  good,  but  would  have  more  sense  if  the  most  success- 
ful paper  in  America,  in  the  common  low  sense  of  the  word,  and 
that  whose  influence  has  received  the  strongest  acknowledg- 
ment from  the  public  and  from  politicians,  had  not  been  con- 
ducted by  a  blackguard  Scotchman.  He  mentioned  also  that  a 
paragraph  written  by  Garrison  about  Mr.  Cobden,  and  put  by 
him  at  the  opening  of  the  "Week,"  during  my  absence  in  the 
country,  was  cited  as  a  proof  of  the  English  direction  of  my 
thoughts  in  editing  the  paper.  The  acuteness  of  some  people  is 
wonderful.  Olmsted's  coming  in  relieves  my  mind  a  good  deal, 
particularly  in  ridding  me  of  the  hateful  burden  of  over-cau- 
tion. We  go  over  all  the  editorial  matter  together,  so  that  he 
is  in  fact,  as  well  as  in  name,  responsible  for  all  it  contains ;  but 
I  am  amused  sometimes  to  think  how  little  my  assistants  are 
likely  to  gain  by  the  change.  Bowles  tells  me  that  Emerson 
took  back  from  here  the  news,  or  the  idea,  that  Olmsted  had 
"supplanted"  me.  This  report  I  care  nothing  for.  The  only 
fear  I  had  about  his  coming  in  was  that  it  might  seem  an  en- 
dorsement by  more  respectable  men  of  Stearns's  attacks  on  my 
character.  But  there  is  no  danger  of  this,  and  you  know  how 
little  I  cared  for  the  fame  of  editing  the  Nation,  and  how  anx- 
ious I  have  always  been  to  remain  in  the  background.  So  I  am 
very  well  satisfied  to  have  it  supposed  that  Olmsted  writes 
every  line  of  the  paper.  Fame  has  to  be  very  well  won  before  I 
either  admire  or  care  for  it,  and  notoriety  I  abhor. 

Let  the  matter  end  how  it  may,  I  think  you  and  I  may  always 
look  back  on  it  with  satisfaction,  and  look  over  our  two  or  three 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    33 

volumes  of  the  Nation  without  any  other  regret  than  that  it 
did  n't  succeed.  If  it  failed  to-morrow,  I  should  feel  myself 
abundantly  repaid  in  having  by  means  of  it  been  brought  into 
such  close  relations  with  so  kind  and  sympathizing  a  friend  as 
you  have  been.  The  worst  charge  that  has  arisen  against  me 
out  of  it  is  that  I  am  an  "Englishman,"  but  I  don't  think  my 
children  will  blush  over  it.1 

Mr.  Godkin  did  not,  however,  have  to  wait  long  for 
the  praise  of  the  most  judicious  among  those  who  at  first 
had  been  inclined  to  doubt  the  wisdom  of  placing  him 
at  the  head  of  the  Nation.  Mr.  Norton  wrote  to  him: 

Emerson  spoke  to  me  last  week  in  warmest  terms  of  its  [the 
Nation's]  excellence,  its  superiority  to  any  other  journal  we 
have  or  have  had ;  its  breadth,  its  variety,  its  self-sustainment, 
its  admirable  style  of  thought  and  expression.  It  was  the 
amende  honorable  made  in  his  best  of  all  possible  ways. 

Unaffected  alike  by  praise  and  blame,  the  Nation  pur- 
sued its  course,  dealing  with  its  readers  in  a  spirit  of 
absolute  frankness.  A  striking  instance  of  its  candor  may 
here  be  quoted  (Nation,  October  24,  1867) : 

The  New  York  Tribune,  in  commenting  on  our  recent  at- 
tempt to  forecast  the  political  future,  imputes  our  prediction 
that  the  Republican  party  in  this  State  will  be  defeated  to  a 
wish  that  it  may  be  defeated.  All  we  have  to  say  on  this  point  is, 
that  there  is  nothing  in  the  course  of  The  Nation  to  warrant 
any  such  assumption.  We  have  never  professed  to  be  a  thick- 
and-thin  supporter  of  the  party,  and  have  criticised  it  very 
freely;  but  we  make  bold  to  say  that  if  anybody  thinks  it  worth 
his  while  to  run  over  our  utterances  on  the  leading  public  ques- 
tions during  the  last  two  years,  he  will  come  to  the  conclusion 
that,  had  the  Republican  party  always  been  of  our  way  of 
1  Ogden,  Life  and  Letters. 


34    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

thinking,  it  would  have  done  all  the  good  it  has  succeeded  in 
doing  and  would  now  be  in  no  danger  of  defeat.  We  remember 
with  great  satisfaction  that  we  denounced  a  good  many  "bold 
measures"  when  many  politicians  who,  since  the  Ohio  election, 
have  been  protesting  that  they  always  thought  them  foolish, 
were  loud  in  their  advocacy  of  them,  and  when  anybody  who 
sought  to  remind  the  public  of  the  experience  of  mankind  and 
the  lessons  of  science  ran  the  risk  of  being  denounced  as  "weak- 
kneed,"  "weak-backed,"  or  a  "dilettante,"  if  not  a  Copper- 
head. We  recall  with  peculiar  pleasure  just  now  our  course  on 
impeachment,  confiscation,  excessive  tariffs,  vengeful  legisla- 
tion, Barnum,  and  the  Fenians,  and  divers  other  schemes  and 
questions  of  which  the  public  is  now  witnessing  the  repudiation 
by  their  downcast  authors.  The  whole  thing  only  satisfied  us 
more  firmly  than  ever  that  the  work  of  government  here,  as 
elsewhere,  has  to  be  done  by  reason  and  not  by  bellowing  and 
hallooing.  With  regard  to  our  unpleasant  predictions  as  to  the 
elections,  we  may  explain  —  though  for  our  own  readers  no 
explanation  is  necessary  —  that  we  never  on  any  subject  play 
the  part  of  the  Roman  soothsayers.  We  do  not  put  forward 
one  thing  in  print  and  say  another  thing  in  private.  We  pro- 
fess to  supply  opinions  exactly  as  we  have  formed  them,  and  not 
in  the  shape  in  which  they  will  be  likely  to  please  or  encourage 
or  console.  If  they  damage  the  Republican  party  or  any  other 
good  party,  we  are  sorry  for  it;  but  we  cannot,  for  the  benefit 
of  that  party,  either  say  what  we  do  not  believe  or  suppress  what 
we  do  believe,  while  professing  to  supply  our  readers  with  honest 
comments  on  public  affairs.  Moreover,  we  shall  regret  the  de- 
feat of  the  party  as  much  as  anybody;  but  the  American  nation 
is  to  live  after  the  next  State  election  and  after  the  next  Presi- 
dential election,  and  after  every  party  now  in  existence;  and  it 
is  because  we  believe  it  cannot  live  in  any  way  that  will  be  of 
any  service  to  mankind  unless  politics  can  be  made  and  kept 
purer  than  they  are  now,  that  we  say  our  say  without  regard 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    35 

to  immediate  consequences.  We  do  not  place  any  extraordi- 
nary value  on  our  influence;  but,  as  far  as  it  goes,  we  are  deter- 
mined it  shall  only  be  exercised  in  a  way  that  moralists  —  not 
party  politicians  —  will  approve.  We  treat  our  readers  as 
grown-up  men  and  women  who  can  bear  to  hear  the  truth,  and 
know  how  to  reason  from  it  with  regard  to  their  own  duty,  and 
not  as  children  who  have  to  have  pretty  stories  told  to  them 
and  fine  promises  made  to  them  to  keep  their  courage  up. 

The  cry  that  the  Nation  was  not  thoroughly  American 
in  spirit  was  made  to  cover  its  literary  columns  as  well 
as  its  political,  and  early  in  its  career  (March  1,  1866), 
the  editors  repudiated  the  charge  in  an  article  of  great 
effectiveness,  which  is  here  reproduced  entire: 

OUR   LITERATURE   AND   OUR   CRITICS 

We  have  seen  in  various  quarters  during  the  last  six  months 
the  imputation  thrown  out  that  The  Nation,  as  well  as  other 
literary  journals,  has  devoted  too  large  a  portion  of  its  space  and 
attention,  in  its  literary  department,  to  the  consideration  of 
foreign  literature  and  literary  news,  neglecting  American  books, 
and  American  authors,  and  the  current  subjects  of  American 
thought.  We  believe  the  charge  was  never  seriously  made  by 
anybody  who  both  read  the  paper  carefully,  and  watched 
closely  the  sources  from  which  our  people  draw  their  reading 
matter,  and  the  class  of  topics  which  most  occupy  the  atten- 
tion of  the  studious  portion  of  the  public.  But  then  it  is  just 
the  kind  of  charge  which  finds  ready  acceptance  with  that  large 
class  who  talk  under  the  influence  of  vague  impressions,  and 
that  still  larger  class  who  are  morbidly  sensitive  touching  the 
proper  recognition  of  American  talent,  and  can  never  thor- 
oughly rid  themselves  of  the  idea  that  there  is  a  conspiracy 
amongst  the  critics,  both  home  and  foreign,  to  rob  it  of  its  due. 

Now  in  these  cases  there  is,  after  all,  nothing  like  facts,  and 


36    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

to  the  facts  let  us  go.  In  the  first  volume  of  The  Nation, 
from  July  6  th  to  December,  1865,  there  were  ninety  reviews  of 
books,  of  which  forty-five  were  devoted  to  foreign  books  and 
authors,  six  only  of  these  being  on  books  not  republished  in 
this  country.  There  were  also  fifty -five  short  notices  of  books; 
of  these  not  fifteen  were  of  foreign  books.  In  truth,  then,  more 
than  half  of  our  space  devoted  to  literary  criticism  was  taken 
up  with  reviews  of  American  publications;  and  we  have  really 
to  plead  guilty  to  not  having  paid  due  attention  to  foreign 
literature. 

Let  us  now  see  what  books  were  published  in  the  United 
States  during  those  six  months.  We  have  taken  the  lists  given 
in  the  "American  Publishers'  Circular,"  and,  excluding  direc- 
tories and  volumes  of  statute  laws,  we  find  681  works.  Some  of 
these  are  probably  counted  twice,  as  the  lists  given  are  not 
always  correct,  and  there  are  frequent  repetitions  which  we 
have  tried  to  make  allowance  for.  Of  this  number,  105  are  pub- 
lications of  foreign  books;  of  the  remainder,  at  least  three- 
fourths  are  pamphlets,  "dime  novels,"  Sunday-school  books, 
or  law  reports,  which  are  excluded  from  literature  proper. 
This  leaves  us  about  140  books.  Of  these,  again,  some  are  new 
editions  and  some  republications  of  early  books  and  tracts 
printed  privately  or  by  literary  societies.  The  forty-nine  re- 
views and  forty  notices  of  American  books  in  The  Nation  for 
that  period  cover,  then,  nearly  the  whole  ground  of  the  national 
literature.  Some  of  the  reviews  are  of  books  previously  pub- 
lished, and  some  were  published  too  late  for  notice  in  this  paper 
at  that  time,  and  many  were  not  worth  notice;  but  the  result 
will  remain  about  the  same. 

Such  has  been  the  quantity  of  American  literature  for  six 
months.  As  respects  quality,  there  is  also  something  to  be  said. 
In  poetry  we  have  had  nothing  but  Brownell's  small  volume;  in 
criticism  no  works  of  account  except  White's  two  volumes  on 
Shakespeare  and  Botta's  compilation  on  Dante;  in  history  we 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    37 

have  had  various  chronicles  of  the  war,  by  such  writers  as 
Headley  and  Abbott;  but  to  call  them  "history"  would  be  an 
abuse  of  language.  We  have  had,  however,  to  set  them  off, 
Parkman's  "Pioneers";  and  in  biography  the  lives  of  Adams 
and  Warren.  There  has  been  but  one  even  respectable  novel, 
Mrs.  Stoddard's  "Two  Men."  In  theology  we  have  had  Bush- 
nell's  "Vicarious  Sacrifice"  and  Hurst's  "History  of  Ration- 
alism." Some  valuable  contributions  have  been  made  to  mili- 
tary science  and  military  surgery.  In  mental  philosophy  we 
produced  absolutely  nothing;  in  political  economy  nothing  but 
Professor  Perry's  manual,  if  we  except  the  ton  of  pamphlets, 
some  wise,  some  foolish,  called  forth  by  the  condition  of  the 
currency.  In  general  literature  we  have  had  Wheeler's  excel- 
lent "Dictionary  of  Fictitious  Names,"  Godwin's  "Cyclopaedia 
of  Biography";  in  political  science,  Draper's  "Civil  Policy"; 
and  to  these  may  be  added  a  few  good  school-books  to  make  up 
the  sum  total. 

Let  any  one  now  go  into  Christern's  or  Appleton's  or  Scrib- 
ner's,  and  look  at  the  mass  of  books  which  lie  on  their  tables  or 
figure  in  their  foreign  catalogues  every  month,  of  history,  criti- 
cism, metaphysics,  philology,  ethnology,  jurisprudence,  travels, 
natural  philosophy,  political  economy  —  most  of  them  the 
product  of  years  of  labor,  and  that  the  labor,  in  a  very  large 
number  of  cases,  of  the  most  gifted  and  highly  cultivated  minds 
in  the  world.  Let  him  compare  all  this  mountain  of  reasoning 
and  research  with  what  we  have  to  show  in  the  same  fields,  and 
then  ask  himself  who  is  to  blame  if  American  literature  does  not 
occupy  a  larger  share  of  the  attention  of  American  critics. 

But  does  foreign  literature  occupy  the  attention  of  the  Amer- 
ican people  in  the  ratio  of  the  value  of  that  literature?  Yes,  it 
does.  Nearly  all  the  great  European  works  of  the  day  are  re- 
printed here  —  one  hundred  and  fifteen  during  the  six  months 
ending  December  31,  1865.  Nearly  all  the  books  of  any  per- 
manent value  which  American  publishers  produced  during  the 


38    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

last  two  years,  on  history,  on  metaphysics,  on  physical  science, 
on  jurisprudence,  and  political  economy,  have  been  works  of 
foreign  authors.  The  large  importing  bookstores  here  are  filled 
with  foreign  books  —  French,  German,  and  English  —  which 
are  sold  and  renewed  constantly;  books  of  a  kind  that  never 
have  been  written  here  —  books  on  art,  on  philosophy,  on  sci- 
ence. The  call  for  such  literature  is  very  great,  and  rapidly 
increasing.  And  not  only  foreign  books  are  largely  read  and 
reprinted,  but  foreign  journals  are  reprinted  here.  Four  Eng- 
lish reviews  and  one  monthly  are  reprinted  bodily,  some  of 
them  having  a  much  greater  circulation  here  than  at  home. 
Three  or  four  other  magazines  are  published  simultaneously 
both  here  and  in  England.  At  least  four  periodicals  are  avow- 
edly made  up  entirely  of  articles  from  English  journals,  and  the 
rest  of  our  journals,  from  Harper's  Monthly  down,  are  in  a  great 
part  filled  with  English  articles  for  which  no  credit  is  given. 
In  fact,  the  reading  matter  of  this  country  is  almost  entirely 
foreign.  This,  we  admit,  is  an  unfortunate  state  of  things;  we 
deplore  it  as  much  as  anybody,  more  than  most  people,  for 
were  the  taste  for  home  literature  more  widely  diffused,  jour- 
nals like  The  Nation  would  be  all  the  better  for  it.  We  do 
not  mean  that  we  deplore  the  existence  of  the  love  of  good 
books,  no  matter  where  they  come  from  —  that  we  consider 
eminently  healthy;  but  we  deplore  the  fact  that  American  writ- 
ers, as  a  body,  are  not  able  to  do  more  towards  satisfying  the 
wants  of  their  own  countrymen.  We  trust  they  will  never  com- 
pletely satisfy  them,  because  we  think  the  Chinese  are  not 
good  models  in  literature  any  more  than  in  art  —  and  a  determi- 
nation on  the  part  of  any  people  to  draw  its  mental  food  from 
only  one  quarter  would,  sooner  or  later,  produce  a  Chinese  type 
of  civilization. 

It  could  not,  in  the  nature  of  things,  be  expected  that  in  six 
months,  and  the  six  months  following  a  great  war,  the  state  of 
literature  would  be  any  different.  Literature  is  not  a  lucrative 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    39 

profession,  and  there  are  few  inducements  here  to  pursue  it. 
The  best  talent  of  the  country  is  turned  in  other  directions 
from  authorship.  There  are  few  men  of  large  wealth  and  corre- 
sponding culture  who  have  been  able  to  give  thought  enough 
to  one  subject  to  make  themselves  authorities  on  it.  We  have 
some  fine  scholars,  but  they  occupy  poorly  paid  professorial 
chairs,  and  all  their  spare  moments  are  taken  up  with  ephem- 
eral writing  for  reviews  and  newspapers.  Indeed,  it  is  rather  a 
matter  of  surprise  that  we  have  even  as  many  good  authors  as 
we  have.  The  production  of  great  works  in  literature  is  not  al- 
ways possible,  and  the  present  seems  to  be  one  of  those  pre- 
paratory periods  when  men  are  being  educated  and  trained 
who,  some  day,  will  be  good  scholars  and  writers,  and  will  pro- 
duce works  worthy  of  being  set  beside  the  contemporaneous  lit- 
erature of  other  countries.  A  desire  to  read  good  books  will  act 
on  culture,  and  will  affect  the  power  of  producing  good  books. 
It  is  certainly  no  part  of  our  purpose,  any  more  than  that  of 
any  newspaper,  to  build  up  a  literature.  It  would  be  silly  and 
presumptuous  for  us  to  entertain  or  proclaim  any  such  inten- 
tion. The  role  of  a  weekly  critic  is,  after  all,  a  very  humble  one. 
It  is  to  examine  the  fields  from  which  it  finds  the  community 
drawing  its  mental  food,  and  to  point  out,  to  the  best  of  its 
ability,  what  those  fields  produce  —  what  is  bad  and  what  is 
good;  what  had  better  be  tasted,  what  digested,  and  what 
thrown  away;  to  keep  before  the  public  the  best  standard  in 
every  department,  and  point  out  departures  from  it,  according 
to  the  critic's  understanding  of  it.  If  people  go  to  England  for 
political  economy  and  history,  to  Germany  for  philology  and 
metaphysics,  to  France  for  everything  by  turns,  it  is  our  busi- 
ness to  go  with  them  and  find  out  what  the  English,  French, 
and  Germans  are  getting  ready  for  their  entertainment;  and  we 
are  no  more  responsible  for  the  extent  to  which  those  markets 
are  ransacked  for  our  literary  wares,  than  we  are  for  the  con- 
dition of  our  dry-goods  trade.   We  protest  against  the  shallow 


40    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

notion  that  a  peculiar  standard  of  art  or  literary  criticism  has 
been  evolved  by  our  political  and  social  system.  This  is  one  of 
those  bits  of  Anglo-Saxon  conceit  which  gives  Frenchmen  and 
Germans  so  much  amusement.  Truth  and  beauty  are  eternal 
and  immutable,  and  of  no  country.  The  style  of  the  "Pelopon- 
nesian  War"  was  a  good  style  two  thousand  years  ago,  is  now  a 
good  style,  and  will  continue  to  be  as  long  as  the  world  lasts.  In 
arrangement  and  diction,  what  orator  has  yet  improved  upon 
Demosthenes?  If  all  the  congresses,  parliaments,  and  acad- 
emies in  the  world  were  to  sit  over  the  matter  till  the  crack  of 
doom  they  would  never  discover  a  better  way  of  writing  history 
than  to  tell  the  truth  at  least  grammatically  and,  if  possible, 
pleasingly  and  picturesquely.  There  will  never  be  an  English, 
or  French,  or  American  astronomy,  or  geology,  or  chemistry. 
The  world  of  knowledge  belongs  to  the  whole  human  race,  as 
the  ocean  does. 

In  1870  the  Nation  came  near  facing  a  crisis  when  Har- 
vard offered  Mr.  Godkin  a  chair  of  history.  He  was  much 
inclined  to  accept  the  offer,  which  was  tempting  from 
many  points  of  view,  and  he  hoped  that  his  professional 
duties  might  still  allow  him  to  return  to  the  editorship 
of  the  Nation.  But  the  advice  of  those  of  his  friends  who 
knew  him  best  prevailed.  Lowell's  outspoken  opinion 
perhaps  influenced  him  most. 

You  know  how  heartily  I  should  rejoice  [he  wrote,  August 
23,  1870]  to  have  you  here  and  how  excellent  a  thing  I  should 
think  it  for  the  College,  and  so  when  I  say  stay,  you  may  be 
sure  my  opinion  is  disinterested.  I  mean  stay  if  the  two  things 
are,  as  you  say,  incompatible.  We  may  find  another  professor 
by  and  by,  —  not  one  that  I  shall  like  so  well,  but  who  will 
serve  the  purpose,  —  but  we  can't  find  another  editor  for  the 
Nation.  Without  your  steady  hand  on  the  helm  it  would  be  on 
the  rocks,  in  my  judgment,  before  six  months  were  out.  You 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    41 

know  my  opinion  of  its  value  to  the  country  and  I  need  not 
repeat  it.  Your  leaving  it  would  be  nothing  short  of  a  public 
calamity.  Its  bound  volumes  standing  on  Judge  Hoar's  library- 
table,  as  I  saw  them  the  other  day,  were  a  sign  of  the  estimation 
in  which  it  is  held  by  solid  people,  and  it  is  they  who  in  the  long 
run  decide  the  fortunes  of  such  a  journal.  One  of  these  days  it 
will  bring  you  a  revenue  of  money  as  large  as  it  now  does  in  the 
respect  of  the  thoughtful  and  the  fear  of  charlatans.  You  have 
made  it,  and  you  alone  can  sustain  it.  I  see  daily  evidence  of 
the  good  influence  you  exert,  and  that  influence  is  growing. 
Don't  so  much  as  think  of  giving  it  up.  No  man  holds  a  more 
enviable  position  than  you.  You  have  made  yourself  a  real 
power,  and  a  man  who  can  do  that  and  know  it  without  having 
his  head  turned  and  becoming  a  bully  is  rarer  than  Hamlet's 
honest  man. 

My  private  satisfactions  would  be  enlarged  by  having  you 
here,  but  the  loss  in  other  and  more  weighty  respects  would 
be  simply  irreparable.  There  is  my  sincere  judgment.  Stay 
where  you  are  —  on  condition  of  coming  to  see  us  oftener. 
When  I  see,  as  everyone  daily  sees,  the  influence  of  bad  or 
foolish  newspapers,  I  cannot  doubt  that  a  good  and  strong 
one  like  the  Nation  is  insensibly  making  public  opinion  more 
wholesome  with  its  lesson  of  sound  sense.  There  is  no  journal 
that  seems  to  me  on  the  whole  so  good  as  yours  —  so  full  of 
digested  knowledge,  so  little  apt  to  yaw,  and  so  impersonal. 
And  yet,  take  away  your  personality,  and  it  would  soon  sink 
to  the  ordinary  level.  You  can  hold  American  opinions  with- 
out American  prejudices,  and  I  know  very  few  of  my  country- 
men who  have  a  large  enough  intellectual  and  moral  past  be- 
hind them  to  deal  with  politics  in  their  true  sense.  Our  editors 
generally  are  beggars  on  horseback,  and  where  would  you  find 
a  successor  who  would  not  deal  with  his  topics  either  in  the 
hand-to-mouth  style  or  the  parvenu,  which  is  on  the  whole 
worse? 


42    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

No,  my  dear  Godkin,  we  must  give  you  up,  though  it  go  hard, 
and  you  must  keep  on  doing  good,  though  against  your  will  — 
sillogizzando  invidiosi  veri. 

In  June,  1881,  the  ownership  of  the  Nation  passed  into 
the  hands  of  the  proprietors  of  the  New  York  Evening 
Post.  Mr.  Henry  Villard,  Mr.  Garrison's  brother-in-law, 
had  acquired  control  of  the  Evening  Post,  and  Mr.  God- 
kin,  who  now  became  one  of  the  editors  of  the  Post, 
together  with  Carl  Schurz  and  Horace  White,  thus  an- 
nounced the  change  to  Mr.  Norton  (June  9) : 

I  sold  the  Nation  yesterday,  after  much  deliberation  and 
perplexity,  to  the  Evening  Post,  as  the  weekly  edition  of  which 
it  will  appear  after  July  1st.  It  will  not  be  changed  in  appear- 
ance, and  I  hope  not  in  quality,  but  most  of  the  articles  will 
have  previously  appeared  in  the  Post.  Garrison  goes  over  with 
me,  and  will  continue  in  special  charge  of  the  Nation,  and  our 
publisher  becomes  publisher  of  the  Post. 

The  whole  affair  has  given  me  a  good  deal  of  anxiety  during 
the  past  fortnight,  and  I  have  not  the  resort  of  "prayer  for 
guidance,"  which  so  many  people  have;  but  now  that  it  is  de- 
cided I  am  satisfied,  and  I  hope  it  will  seem  a  wise  conclusion 
to  you.  I  had  other  offers  for  the  Nation,  but  felt  sure  in  every 
case  that  the  paper  would,  if  transferred,  die  in  a  couple  of 
years. 

In  speaking  of  the  change  in  the  ownership  of  the 
Nation,  Mr.  Oswald  Garrison  Villard  could  properly  say 2 
that  "just  as  into  no  journalistic  enterprise  commercial 
considerations  entered  less  than  into  the  first  launching 
of  the  Nation,  so  they  faded  away  when  the  Nation 
passed  into  the  hands  of  the  present  owners." 

1  Ogden,  Life  and  Letters. 

2  Semi-Centennial  Number.    Article  on  "The  Nation  and  its  Ownership." 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    43 

To  both  Mr.  Godkin  and  Mr.  Garrison  financial  profits  could 
naturally  make  no  appeal.  Their  lives  were  devoted  to  things 
spiritual  and  intellectual ;  their  rich  rewards  came  in  the  appre- 
ciation and  gratitude  of  men  of  light  and  leading,  which  was 
theirs  in  the  beginning  and  in  the  end,  and  in  the  consciousness 
that  they  had  profoundly  influenced  the  thought  and  con- 
science of  their  time.  That  was  the  success  they  aimed  at  — 
to  make  the  Nation  the  monitor  and  the  mouthpiece  of  intellec- 
tual America,  and  in  this  they  succeeded.  With  Mr.  Godkin's 
advancement  within  a  year  to  the  position  of  editor-in-chief  of 
the  Evening  Post,  Mr.  Schurz  retiring,  Mr.  Garrison  became 
the  editor  and  the  soul  of  the  Nation.  From  1881  until  his  re- 
tirement the  Nation  was  precisely  what  Mr.  Garrison  thought 
it  should  be,  both  on  the  editorial  and  the  business  side,  and 
no  man  ever  gave  his  life  more  happily,  more  earnestly,  or 
more  completely,  to  the  object  of  his  daily  labors. 

The  political  course  of  the  Nation,  after  its  consolida- 
tion with  the  Evening  Post  in  1881,  is  properly  part  of  the 
history  of  the  latter  journal.  In  Mr.  Garrison's  hands  the 
Nation's  literary  reputation  was  secure,  while  Mr.  Godkin 
was  engrossed  by  his  daily  labors  on  the  Evening  Post,  and 
after  he  had  laid  down  his  pen,  and  Mr.  Garrison  assumed 
entire  editorial  control  of  the  Nation,  it  suffered  no  loss 
of  prestige.  The  men  who  conferred  on  the  Nation  part  of 
their  own  scientific  and  literary  lustre  continued  to  write 
for  it,  and  a  new  generation  worthily  filled  the  gaps 
caused  by  death.  Of  the  giants  who  have  passed  away, 
and  who,  with  their  services  to  the  paper,  had  given  their 
friendship  to  its  editors,  during  the  first  twenty-five 
years  of  its  history  and  a  good  part  of  the  second  period, 
only  a  few  can  be  commemorated  in  this  place.  One  of 
the  foremost,  who  did  not  quite  round  out  the  first 
quarter-century  of  his  important  contributions  to  the 
Nation,  was  Asa  Gray,  the  great  botanist,  who  died  in 


44    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

January,  1888.  Some  of  his  articles,  such  as  "Variation 
of  Animals  and  Plants  under  Domestication"  {Nation, 
March,  1868),  "Evolution  and  Theology"  (January  15, 
1874),  his  summing  up  of  the  conclusions  concerning 
insectivorous  plants  (April  2  and  9,  1874),  "What  is 
Darwinism?"  (May  28,  1874),  and  his  review  of  "Dar- 
win's Insectivorous  and  Climbing  Plants"  (January  6 
and  13,  1876),  have  become  permanent  parts  of  the 
literature  on  their  subjects.  Professor  Gray's  last  con- 
tribution to  the  Nation  was  an  exhaustive  review  of 
Darwin's  "Life."  His  expositions  of  Darwinism  and 
kindred  philosophical  matters  were  not  the  least  of  his 
great  services  to  science.  In  his  letters  to  Sir  Joseph 
Hooker  and  to  Sir  Charles  Lyell,  Darwin  frequently  ex- 
pressed his  deep  appreciation  of  Gray's  approval  and 
criticism.  He  wrote  to  Lyell  in  1860:  "No  one,  I  think, 
understands  the  whole  case  better  than  Asa  Gray." 

Several  of  William  James's  brilliant  papers  on  philo- 
sophical and  physiological  subjects  first  saw  the  light  in 
the  columns  of  the  Nation.  One  recalls,  among  others, 
his  "Moral  Medication"  —  a  review  of  Liebault's  "Du 
Sommeil  et  des  Etats  Analogues"  (Nation,  July,  1868)  — 
his  paper  on  Taine's  "Intelligence"  (August,  1872),  his 
discussion  of  "Vivisection"  (February,  1875),  his  "Ger- 
man Pessimism"  —  a  review  of  Pfleiderer's  "Der  mo- 
derne  Pessimismus"  (October,  1875) — and  his  article 
on  Maudsley's,  Ferrier's,  and  Luys's  treatises  on  the 
Mind  and  Brain  (June,  1877). 

To  the  manysidedness  of  the  great  mathematical 
astronomer,  Simon  Newcomb,  the  pages  of  the  Nation 
bear  ample  testimony.  The  titles  of  some  of  his  con- 
tributions to  the  earlier  volumes  speak  for  themselves: 
"Bowen's  American  Political  Economy"  (Nation,  May, 
1870),  "Proctor  on  the  Moon"  (October,  1873),  "The 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS  _  45 

District  Investigation"  (June,  1874),  "Price  on  Cur- 
rency and  Banking"  (December,  1875),  "Walker  on  the 
Wages  Question"  (July,  1876),  "Who  Are  the  Friends  of 
Negro  Suffrage?"  (January,  1877),  "The  Life-insurance 
Failures"  (March,  1877),  an  obituary  article  on  Professor 
Joseph  Henry  (May,  1878),  "Education  at  the  Naval 
Academy"  (June,  1878),  "The  Signal-Service  Succes- 
sion" (December,  1880).  That  even  in  his  later  years 
Professor  Newcomb  continued  to  be  stirred  by  the 
practical  questions  of  the  day,  was  evidenced  by  such 
articles  in  the  Nation  as  his  "Shall  WTe  Raise  a  Statue  to 
[Boss]  Shepherd?"  (October,  1902),  "The  Functions  of 
the  Senate"  (November,  1903),  "The  Cost  of  Life- 
insurance  Business"  (July,  1905),  and  "What  the  Navy 
Needs"  (December,  1905). 

Particularly  intimate  were  the  Nation  s  relations  with 
General  J.  D.  Cox,  Grant's  high-minded  and  ill-used 
Secretary  of  the  Interior.  "For  a  generation,"  Mr.  Gar- 
rison wrote  in  his  obituary  article,  "we  have  enjoyed  with 
him  an  intimacy  characterized  by  entire  mutual  esteem 
through  all  vicissitudes  of  opinion ;  enlivened  by  constant 
intercourse  by  letter,  in  connection  with  that  attached 
and  cordial  collaboration  which  has  lent  so  much  weight 
to  the  reviews  of  this  journal."  A  few  of  the  subjects 
treated  by  General  Cox  in  the  Nation  were:  "General 
Joseph  E.  Johnston's  Narrative"  (May,  1874),  "General 
Sherman's  Memoirs"  (June,  1875),  "The  Army  of  the 
Cumberland"  (December,  1875),  "The  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives" (an  editorial,  April,  1878),  "Parliamentary 
Procedure"  (editorial,  September,  1878),  "Howard's 
Nez-Perce  War"  (August,  1881),  "Van  Home's  Life  of 
General  Thomas"  (October,  1882). 

Henry  C.  Lea,  the  historian  of  mediaeval  Europe,  au- 
thor of  the  monumental  "History  of  the  Inquisition  in 


46    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

the  Middle  Ages,"  often  chose  the  Nation  as  a  medium 
for  expressing  his  views  on  some  of  the  many  subjects 
that  engaged  his  attention. 

The  late  Charles  Francis  Adams,  Jr.,  kept  up  an  active 
connection  with  the  Nation  and  its  editors  during  all 
his  life.  The  first  of  his  contributions,  as  nearly  as  can 
be  traced,  was  an  article  on  "The  Secret  of  the  Rise  in 
Steel"  (Nation,  March,  1870).  In  subsequent  issues  he 
treated,  among  many  other  subjects,"  Railroad  Subsidies  " 
(October,  1870),  "The  'Pooling'  of  Railroad  Receipts" 
(November,  1870),  "Railroad  Investments"  (August, 
1872),  "The  Farmers'  Clubs  and  the  Railroads"  (April, 
1873),  "The  Experience  of  a  Great  Corporation"  (Octo- 
ber, 1874),  "The  Railroad  Usury  Law"  (April,  1881),  and 
"  Sewall's  Diary  "  (a  book  review,  July  and  August,  1882) . 

It  would  be  an  interesting  task,  did  space  permit,  to 
follow  in  the  pages  of  the  Nation  the  development  of 
American  thought  during  the  fifty  years  of  the  journal's 
existence.  That  the  work  of  the  editors  and  the  writers  of 
the  Nation  —  many  of  whom  had  so  largely  aided  in  the 
country's  progress  —  was  constructive  in  the  best  sense 
of  the  word,  will,  after  the  lapse  of  so  many  years,  be 
readily  conceded.  The  story  of  an  important  epoch  in  our 
economic  history  is  told  in  such  contributions  as  David  A. 
Wells's  luminous  comments  on  matters  of  internal  rev- 
enue and  on  the  enormous  discretionary  powers  of  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  (October,  1872),  and  in  his 
article  on  the  absurdities  in  American  local  taxation 
(February,  1873);  in  Edward  Atkinson's  papers  on  the 
contraction  of  the  currency,  and  in  Professor  W.  G. 
Sumner's  discussions  of  the  tariff  and  bimetallism.  To 
enumerate  the  most  noteworthy  articles  in  the  Nation  on 
subjects  connected  with  the  natural  sciences,  philosophy, 
jurisprudence,  history,  Biblical  criticism,  philology,  and 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    47 

a  large  field  of  belles-lettres,  is  to  tell  the  great  names  of 
the  last  fifty  years.  A  few  may  still  be  added  to  the  list 
of  the  warmest  friends  of  the  paper  from  its  early  years. 
None,  perhaps,  was  closer  to  Mr.  Godkin  than  Francis 
Parkman,  of  whom  he  said:  "He  impressed  me,  of  all  the 
men  I  have  ever  known,  as  the  most  of  an  American." 
Parkman  was  not  a  frequent  contributor  to  the  Nation, 
but  what  he  wrote  was  generally  on  the  subjects  nearest 
to  his  heart.  One  recalls  his  reviews  of  "Decouvertes 
et  Etablissements  des  Francais  dans  l'Ouest  et  dans  le 
Sud  de  FAmerique  Septentrionale "  (September,  1876), 
"Montcalm  et  le  Canada  Francais"  (May,  1877),  and 
"The  Chronicle  of  the  St.  Lawrence"  (July,  1878). 
Francis  James  Child,  author  of  the  classic  "English  and 
Scottish  Ballads,"  and  one  of  the  men  whose  achieve- 
ments in  letters  and  devotion  to  the  highest  interests  of 
the  country  have  made  their  university  illustrious,  was 
from  the  inception  of  the  Nation  one  of  its  most  valued 
contributors.  Few  of  the  literary  men  of  New  England 
wrote  more  constantly  for  the  Nation,  or  were  more  in 
sympathy  with  Mr.  Garrison's  ideals,  than  Thomas 
Wentworth  Higginson.  With  him  may  be  linked,  as 
holding  all  his  life  a  message  for  freedom,  in  thought 
and  action,  John  White  Chadwick,  for  forty  years  pas- 
tor of  the  Second  Unitarian  Church  of  Brooklyn.  His 
connection  with  the  Nation  began  in  Volume  I,  with  a 
notice  of  the  life  of  Edward  Irving,  and  his  last  review 
was  printed  shortly  before  his  death,  in  1904.  Colonel 
George  E.  Waring,  who  by  his  work  as  a  sanitary  engi- 
neer placed  New  York  city  and  the  whole  country  under 
deep  obligations,  began  in  the  early  seventies  to  write 
for  the  Nation  on  the  subjects  which  he  had  so  thor- 
oughly mastered.  Another  specialist  of  high  renown, 
who  for  thirty  years  gave  the  Nation  the  benefit  of  his 


48    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

extensive  knowledge,  was  Professor  W.  W.  Goodwin.  The 
most  notable  of  his  contributions  to  the  Nation  were  the 
articles  on  Schliemann's  discoveries.  One  who  did  much 
important  work  for  the  Nation  in  its  early  years  should 
be  remembered  —  Earl  Shinn,  who,  while  studying  art  in 
Paris,  wrote  some  graphic  letters  to  the  paper,  and  for  a 
number  of  years  was  its  principal  art  critic.  The  editors 
said  of  him  that  he  employed  a  vocabulary  of  remarkable 
scope  and  originality,  and  delighted  as  much  in  the  stroke 
of  his  pen  as  of  his  brush.  One  of  his  early  Nation  letters 
from  Paris  attracted  the  attention  of  Lowell,  who  wrote 
to  Mr.  Godkin  (July,  1869) :  "  I  have  n't  seen  a  better 
piece  of  writing  than  that  French  atelier.  It  is  the  very 
best  of  its  kind.   Cherish  that  man,  whoever  he  is." 

Not  the  least  important  part  of  the  Nation's  work  was 
done  by  men  who  cultivated  a  restricted  specialty  with 
life-long  devotion,  content  with  the  appreciation  of  the 
discriminating  few.  There  leap  to  one's  mind  two  writers 
on  military  affairs,  General  Francis  W.  Palfrey  —  "as  fine 
an  example  of  patriot  and  Puritan  stock  as  this  genera- 
tion has  seen,"  Mr.  Garrison  said  of  him  —  who  wrote 
admirably  on  Antietam  and  Fredericksburg  and  other 
campaigns  of  the  Civil  War,  and  John  Codman  Ropes,  an 
eminent  student  of  military  history  in  general  and  the 
admirer  and  authoritative  historian  of  Bonaparte  —  and 
yet  no  imperialist.  Robert  Traill  Spence  Lowell,  the 
elder  brother  of  James  Russell,  enriched  the  columns  of 
the  Nation  with  articles,  written  in  a  peculiarly  racy  style, 
on  his  favorite  subject  —  Newfoundland.  The  Reverend 
Samuel  Beal,  professor  of  Chinese  at  University  College, 
London,  wrote  learnedly  and  agreeably  on  Buddhism, 
and  Lieutenant-Commander  Henry  H.  Gorringe,  re- 
membered for  his  semi-naval  exploit  in  bringing  to  these 
shores  the  Alexandrian  obelisk,  treated  of  the   Inter- 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    49 

oceanic  Canal,  the  North  African  Inland  Sea,  and  other 
gigantic  projects  around  which  his  fertile  mind  played. 
And  there  was  the  stanch  American,  Fitzedward  Hall, 
many  years  of  whose  romantic  life  were  spent  in  Eng- 
land, teaching  Sanskrit,  Hindustani,  and  Indian  juris- 
prudence, who  sent  to  the  Nation  the  fruits  of  his  minute 
studies  in  English  lexicography. 

Mr.  Garrison's  life-long  familiarity  with  the  special 
qualification  of  every  leading  scholar  in  the  country  en- 
abled him  to  assign,  without  hesitation,  any  book  to  the 
man  best  fitted  to  review  it  for  the  Nation.  Thus,  for  cer- 
tain aspects  of  theology  and  church  history,  he  would 
turn  to  Professor  George  P.  Fisher;  for  Confucianism  to 
Dr.  S.  Wells  Williams;  for  civil  law  to  Professor  J.  Nor- 
ton Pomeroy;  for  bird  lore  to  Elliott  Coues;  for  Mexican 
antiquities  to  A.  F.  Bandelier,  etc.  As  authoritative  as 
the  specialists  at  Mr.  Garrison's  disposal,  were  the  men  of 
vast  general  knowledge  and  fine  literary  instincts  who 
could  be  trusted  to  deal  competently  with  a  large  variety 
of  subjects.  One  of  the  ablest  publicists  of  the  last  cen- 
tury, Goldwin  Smith,  did  much  of  his  best  work,  mostly 
unsigned,  for  many  years  in  the  Nation.  His  reviews  pos- 
sessed an  unmistakable  flavor  of  their  own.  Cobden  said, 
early  in  Goldwin  Smith's  career:  "His  pen  is  a  power  in 
the  state."  Such  it  remained  after  his  removal  to  Canada. 
It  is  fair  to  say  that  he  rarely  betrayed,  in  the  columns  of 
the  Nation,  that  bitterness  of  spirit  under  attack  which 
made  his  warfare  against  Disraeli  so  memorable. 

An  even  more  versatile  and  scarcely  less  brilliant 
writer,  and  an  unexcelled  popularizer  of  sound  knowl- 
edge, John  Fiske,  was  but  an  infrequent  contributor  to 
the  Nation.  Still,  the  titles  of  some  of  his  articles,  writ- 
ten between  1875  and  1877,  indicate  his  wide  range: 
"Works  on  Music,"  "Draper's  Science  and  Religion," 


50    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

"Norse  Mythology,"  "Paine's  Symphony,"  "Pilgrim 
Memories,"  "Hammond  on  Spiritualism,"  "Mivart's 
Lessons  from  Nature,"  and  "Bateman  on  Darwin." 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  of  the  encyclopaedists  on 
the  Nation's  list  of  contributors  was  Charles  S.  Peirce,  — 
logician,  mathematician,  and  philosopher,  to  mention  only 
a  few  of  the  designations  that  could  be  applied  to  him,  — 
the  son  of  Professor  Benjamin  Peirce,  the  foremost  Amer- 
ican mathematician  of  his  day.  Charles  S.  Peirce  was  con- 
nected with  the  United  States  Coast  and  Geodetic  Sur- 
vey for  a  number  of  years,  and  at  one  time  lectured  on 
logic  at  Johns  Hopkins  University.  His  papers  on  algebra 
of  logic  and  on  the  logic  of  relatives  were  pioneer  work, 
and  his  treatise  on  "Photometric  Researches"  was 
scarcely  less  important.  He  was  one  of  the  most  volumi- 
nous of  Nation  contributors.  A  random  mention  of  a  few 
of  his  articles  can  give  no  hint  of  their  depth  and  vari- 
ety—  "Webster's  Dictionary,"  "Essays  on  Gravitation," 
"Berkeley's  Works,"  "Pasteur,"  "Giddings's  Inductive 
Sociology,"  "Studies  in  Chemistry,"  "Ethics  of  Spin- 
oza," "Analytical  Geometry,"  "Chromatics,"  "Theory 
of  Optics,"  "Radio-Activity,"  "Descartes." 

Some  of  the  earliest  contributors,  fortunately,  remain 
with  us,  a  few  still  to  labor  on  in  the  pursuit  of  ideals  iden- 
tified with  them  and  the  Nation.  Charles  W.  Eliot's  pen 
is  as  tireless  to-day  as  when  he  began  to  write  on  scientific 
subjects  for  the  Nation  in  1866,  and  Basil  L.  Gildersleeve 
still  graces  any  subject  he  touches  upon,  as  in  the  days 
when  —  thirty-four  years  ago  —  he  wrote  in  the  Nation 
on  the  performance  of  "(Edipus  Tyrannus"  at  Harvard. 
One  of  the  most  important  and  most  prolific  of  the  writers 
for  the  Nation  survives  in  the  person  of  C.  C.  Nott,  born 
in  1827,  President  Lincoln's  appointee  as  Judge  of  the 
Court  of  Claims  (of  which  he  became  Chief  Justice  under 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    51 

President  Cleveland)  who  enlightened  the  earlier  genera- 
tion of  Nation  readers  on  some  of  the  weightiest  aspects 
of  Constitutional  law.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  include  with 
these  living  witnesses  of  a  bygone  period  contributors  like 
General  A.  A.  Woodhull,  who  has  furnished  the  Nation 
with  so  many  valuable  papers,  during  so  many  years,  on 
climatology,  modern  theories  of  infection,  and  other  med- 
ical subjects;  Professor  Charles  H.  Moore,  long  iden- 
tified with  American  art  and  art  criticism;  Professor  C.  H. 
Toy,  equally  prominent  at  Harvard  in  another  domain, 
that  of  Hebrew  and  other  Oriental  literatures;  the  emi- 
nent botanist,  Professor  George  L.  Goodale;  Horace 
White,  whose  important  discussions  of  economic  subjects 
cover  almost  the  entire  period  of  the  Nation's  existence, 
and  the  bearer  of  a  name  forever  associated  with  the 
founding  of  the  Nation,  herself  a  cherished  contributor 
to  its  columns,  Miss  Grace  Norton. 

The  Nation  is  fortunate  in  numbering  among  its  old 
friends  and  contributors  not  a  few  eminent  specialists 
who  continue  to  write  for  it,  as  they  did  forty  years  ago 
or  more.  Of  such  are  the  naturalist,  William  H.  Dall, 
the  comparative  anatomist,  Burt  G.  Wilder,  the  philolo- 
gist, James  Morgan  Hart,  and  Professor  T.  F.  Crane,  an 
authority  on  Romance  languages.  The  versatile  author, 
J.  K.  Hosmer,  now  past  eighty,  still  writes  for  its  col- 
umns, W.  E.  Griffis,  an  authority  on  Japan  and  Korea, 
has  been  contributing  to  the  Nation  since  1880,  and  from 
the  same  year  dates  the  connection  with  the  paper  of  two 
scholars  still  far  from  the  Biblical  age,  the  astronomer, 
David  Todd,  and  the  political  economist,  Professor  F. 
W.  Taussig. 

Of  the  men  on  the  staff  of  the  Evening  Post  and  Nation, 
the  oldest  in  point  of  service  is  Henry  T.  Finck,  the  well- 
known  musical  critic,  who  sent,  as  his  first  contribution 


52    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

to  the  Nation,  a  correspondence  from  Munich  on  Wag- 
ner's "Meistersinger,"  printed  in  the  issue  of  March  8, 
1877.  In  these  early  days  he  discussed  in  the  paper, 
besides  musical  matters,  such  topics  as:  The  Influence 
of  Schopenhauer,  Darwinism,  The  Migration  of  Birds, 
Haeckel's  Reply  to  Virchow,  and  Fechner's  "Second 
Soul." 

Fabian  Franklin,  mathematician  and  economist,  sent 
his  first  communication  to  the  Nation  in  1875;  J.  R. 
Towse,  the  dramatic  editor  of  the  Evening  Post,  has  for 
many  years  written  authoritatively  on  his  subject  for  the 
Nation,  as  has  Alexander  D.  Noyes  on  finance.  Mr. 
Rollo  Ogden,  the  present  editor  of  the  Evening  Post,  be- 
gan to  write  for  the  Nation  in  1881. 

Among  the  men  of  a  younger  generation  who  represent 
old  ideals  of  scholarship,  the  most  regular  contributors 
to  the  Nation  of  to-day  are:  Paul  Elmer  More,  Frank 
Jewett  Mather,  Jr.,  Stuart  P.  Sherman,  Irving  Babbitt, 
William  MacDonald,  O.  W.  Firkins,  A.  O.  Lovejoy, 
WTarner  Fite,  and  Sidney  B.  Fay. 

It  is  fitting  to  add  here  the  names  of  the  men  who  suc- 
ceeded Mr.  Godkin  and  Mr.  Garrison  as  editors  of  the 
Nation.  They  were  Hammond  Lamont,  from  1907  to 
1909,  and  Paul  Elmer  More,  from  1909  to  1914.  Harold 
de  Wolf  Fuller  is  the  present  editor. 

It  is  not  possible,  within  the  compass  of  this  book,  to  do 
more  than  allude  to  some  of  the  important  events  in  our 
country  of  which  the  Nation  for  fifty  years  has  been  the 
spectator  and  —  as  must  be  conceded  —  one  of  the  most 
influential  of  commentators.  Mr.  Godkin,  in  his  "Ret- 
rospect," on  the  twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  the  paper, 
touched  upon  the  great  political  and  social  changes  that 
had  taken  place  within  that  quarter  of  the  century. 
Surely  not  less  remarkable  has  been  the  transformation 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    53 

since  then.  It  is  profitable  to  recall  some  of  Mr.  Godkin's 
comments  on  the  events  of  the  earlier  period.  The  bare 
facts  stated  emphasize  the  share  which  the  men  who 
spoke  through  the  Nation  had  in  promoting  political  prog- 
ress. What  Mr.  Godkin  said,  as  to  the  passing  away  of 
the  military  spirit,  is  of  peculiar  interest  at  the  present 
day.   In  the  issue  of  July  3,  1890,  he  wrote : 

In  the  year  in  which  the  Nation  was  started  there  was  hardly 
any  political  observer  who  did  not  look  for  the  permanent 
retention  among  us  of  the  military  spirit,  for  a  considerable  in- 
crease in  the  standing  army,  and  for  an  increased  disposition  to 
use  it  either  for  purposes  of  foreign  aggression,  or  for  the  more 
complete  and  peremptory  assertion  of  a  strong  central  author- 
ity. All  did  not  go  as  far  as  Wendell  Phillips  when  he  declared 
in  that  year,  in  a  speech  in  Boston,  that  our  old  farming  and 
reading  republic  was  at  an  end,  and  that  a  strong  military  and 
perhaps  predatory  republic  was  to  take  its  place.  But  certainly 
few  looked  for  the  rapid  disappearance  of  the  army,  and  the 
almost  abrupt  banishment  of  military  topics  from  the  forum  of 
popular  interest,  and  for  the  eagerness  with  which  a  community 
which  had  just  been  throwing  all  its  powers  into  a  fierce  mili- 
tary struggle,  diverted  its  energies  to  the  business  of  money- 
making.  There  was  something  very  fine,  as  well  as  unexpected, 
about  this,  and  it  called  forth  the  admiration,  as  well  as  the  sur- 
prise, of  the  civilized  world. 

Mr.  Godkin  did  not  have  to  quote  from  the  early  col- 
umns of  the  Nation  to  remind  his  readers  what  part  the 
paper  played  in  the  dark  days  of  Reconstruction,  and 
what  share  it  had  in  ushering  in  a  new  era  in  the  South, 
with  justice  to  both  the  negro  and  the  whites.  Nor  did 
he  allude,  in  his  "Retrospect,"  to  the  services  rendered 
by  the  Nation  during  so  many  years  to  the  causes  of 
sound  money  and  of  civil  service  and  tariff  reform.  Five 


54    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

years  earlier,  on  the  completion  of  its  twentieth  year,  Mr. 
Godkin  had  spoken  of  some  of  the  difficulties  which  beset 
the  Nation  at  a  very  early  period,  and  had  dwelt  with 
pardonable  pride  on  some  of  its  achievements : 

Almost  in  the  first  number  it  questioned  the  wisdom  and 
soundness  of  a  plan  then  in  favor  among  many  of  its  friends  for 
having  the  Supreme  Court  do  the  work  of  reconstruction,  by 
deciding  what  was  or  was  not  "  a  republican  form  of  govern- 
ment." At  a  somewhat  later  period  it  questioned,  amid  much 
obloquy,  the  necessity  and  value  of  the  impeachment  of  An- 
drew Johnson,  on  the  success  of  which  a  large  proportion  of  the 
Republican  party  had  set  its  heart.  It  maintained  that  even 
if  Johnson  were  impeachable,  his  conviction  might  work  mis- 
chief by  throwing  the  Government  into  the  hands  of  extremists, 
among  whom  Benjamin  F.  Butler  was  the  most  influential,  and 
that  his  acquittal  would  simply  be  the  end  of  a  piece  of  elabo- 
rate and  expensive  folly.  In  one  month  after  the  failure  of  the 
trial  the  whole  country,  including  its  chief  promoters,  was 
ashamed  of  the  undertaking.  The  Nation,  too,  undertook  to 
expose  the  pretensions  of  Butler  to  be  considered  an  honest  and 
useful  politician  in  1867,  or  many  years  before  his  party  found 
him  out,  and  while  criticism  of  him  still,  in  Massachusetts  at 
least,  seemed  an  expression  of  indifference  to  the  results  of  the 
war.  In  fact,  it  was  nearly  ten  years  in  advance  of  popular 
opinion  about  this  particular  politician,  and  has  had  the  satis- 
faction of  seeing  its  very  earliest  diagnoses  of  him  accepted  by 
all  Republicans  at  last.  .  .  . 

The  Nation  opposed  the  greenback  theory  from  the  first  mo- 
ment of  its  appearance,  and  when  it  had  such  very  respectable 
Republican  champions  as  the  late  Oliver  P.  Morton ;  and  advo- 
cated a  return  to  specie  payments  when  a  large  number  of  lead- 
ing Republicans  doubted  whether  a  return  would  ever  be  prac- 
ticable, and,  if  practicable,  desirable.    It  was,  if  not  the  first 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    55 

journal  to  engage  in  regular  and  persistent  advocacy  of  civil- 
service  reform,  after  Mr.  Jenckes,  of  Rhode  Island,  had  brought 
it  up  in  Congress,  certainly  the  first  to  place  it  in  the  front  rank 
of  public  questions.  The  first  foreign  complication,  its  discus- 
sion of  which  attracted  any  attention,  was  the  Alabama  case, 
in  which  it,  from  the  opening  of  the  negotiations,  attacked  the 
theory  of  consequential  damages,  then  in  much  favor  with  the 
public,  and  continued  to  attack  it  amid  some  obloquy,  until  it 
was  rejected  as  an  absurdity  by  the  Geneva  Tribunal.  The 
silver  craze  it  opposed  from  the  beginning,  and  has  had  the 
satisfaction  of  seeing  the  correctness  of  most  of  its  positions  as 
regards  the  use  of  silver  in  the  United  States  acknowledged  by 
most  of  its  opponents. 

While  dwelling,  with  not  unpardonable  satisfaction, 
on  its  past  achievements,  the  Nation  faces  the  new 
tasks  before  it  with  new  hope.  Twenty-five  years  ago, 
Mr.  Godkin,  looking  forward  as  well  as  backward, 
wrote : 

The  leading  colleges  of  the  country  have  been  almost  trans- 
formed since  the  Nation  was  started,  and  a  class  of  advanced 
students  have  come  into  existence  who  were  unknown  and  un- 
expected at  the  close  of  the  war.  The  schools  of  political  sci- 
ence which  the  principal  universities  now  contain  turn  out 
yearly  both  writers  and  thinkers  whose  contributions  to  the 
literature  of  political  philosophy,  history,  archaeology,  politi- 
cal economy,  and  administrative  law  are  extremely  import- 
ant, and  have  placed  the  country  in  the  very  front  rank  in 
fields  of  inquiry  in  which  it  was,  five-and-twenty  years  ago, 
almost  wholly  unrepresented.  Not  only  have  they  made  the 
task  of  conducting  a  critical  journal  like  the  Nation  increas- 
ingly easy,  but  they  carry  on  periodicals  of  their  own,  in  which 
the  best  thought  of  the  time  on  political  and  economic  ques- 
tions finds  adequate  expression. 


56    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

The  history  of  the  twenty-five  years  now  closed  has 
borne  out  Mr.  Godkin's  prophecy.  With  its  old  tradi- 
tions and  the  impulses  of  a  new  life  stirring  throughout 
the  land,  the  Nation  of  the  future  may  hope  to  be  worthy 
of  the  Nation  of  the  past.  The  columns  of  the  Nation  of 
to-day  certainly  bear  ample  evidence  of  the  continued 
vitality  of  the  principles  which  animated  its  founders. 
American  scholarship  and  literary  ability  still  flourish,  as 
of  yore.  Many  of  the  names  that  have  so  largely  con- 
tributed to  the  reputation  of  the  paper  still  appear  in  its 
pages,  and  new  men  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  the  masters. 

Mr.  Godkin  died  on  May  21,  1902,  at  Brixham,  South 
Devonshire,  England.  His  health  had  been  failing  for 
some  years,  and  in  September,  1899,  he  was  compelled  to 
retire  from  active  editorial  work.  How  the  loss  to  jour- 
nalism was  viewed  by  his  friends,  may  be  gathered 
from  a  letter  to  him  by  Charles  W.  Eliot  (November  30, 
1899) : 

I  saw  lately  that  you  had  retired  from  active  work.  Natur- 
ally I  fell  to  thinking  about  the  results  of  your  work  on  the 
Nation.  One  may  sometimes  infer  from  his  own  experience 
probable  effects  on  others  who  have  been  subjected  to  life 
influences.  Now  I  am  conscious  that  the  Nation  has  had  a  de- 
cided effect  upon  my  opinions  and  my  action  for  nearly  forty 
years;  and  I  believe  it  has  had  like  effects  on  thousands  of  edu- 
cated Americans.  This  does  not  mean  that  your  readers  have 
always  adopted  your  opinions;  but  if  you  have  not  convinced 
them,  you  have  forced  them  to  find  some  good  reasons  for  hold- 
ing opinions  different  from  yours;  and  that  is  a  great  intellec- 
tual service.  Then  you  have  pricked  any  number  of  bubbles 
and  windbags,  and  have  given  us  keen  enjoyment  in  the  proc- 
ess. And  how  often  you  have  exposed  humbug  and  cant  to  the 
great  refreshment  of  sincere  people! 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    57 

I  have  sometimes  been  sorry  for  you  and  your  immediate 
coadjutors,  because  you  had  no  chance  to  work  immediately 
and  positively  for  the  remedying  of  some  of  the  evils  which  you 
exposed.  The  habitual  critic  gets  a  darker  or  less  cheerful  view 
of  the  social  and  political  state  than  one  does  who  is  actively 
engaged  in  efforts  to  improve  that  state.  All  the  greater  are 
the  obligations  of  society  to  the  critic. 

I  have  said  nothing  about  the  Evening  Post  because  I  have 
seldom  seen  it;  but  I  remember  that  James  Bryce  told  me  that 
he  thought  it  decidedly  the  best  paper  printed  in  the  English 
language1. 

When  the  Evening  Post  celebrated  its  centenary,  Mr. 
Godkin  wTas  too  ill  to  do  more  than  send  a  cable  message 
manifesting  his  interest  in  the  occasion;  but  in  return  for 
the  feeling  tributes  paid  him  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Garrison, 
from  Torquay  (November  29,  1901) : 

I  have  received  your  account  of  the  Evening  Post  anniversary; 
it  was  evidently  a  very  gratifying  occasion  for  all  who  were  con- 
cerned in  it.  I  do  not  remember  any  newspaper  ever  having  re- 
ceived a  similar  compliment  before.  It  is  some  return  for  the 
way  in  which  we  all  spent  ourselves.  I  read  most  of  the  speeches. 
I  have  read  what  you  saw  fit  to  say  of  me  with  emotion ;  it  is 
certainly  most  gratifying.  The  dearest  thing  I  recall  in  it  all  is 
my  thirty  years  association  with  you.  You  have  been  to  me,  in 
it  all,  the  kindest  and  most  devoted  friend.  That  you  are  able 
to  hold  such  a  meeting,  seems  to  me  one  of  the  best  rewards  you 
could  have  had;  you  will  feel  surer  of  your  public,  and  your 
task  therefore  should  be  easier  in  future.  Some  day  I  believe 
civil  service  reform  will  have  become  as  obvious  in  America  as 
it  is  here;  anything  else  is  unthinkable.  The  anti-slavery  fight 
seemed  even  more  hopeless,  yet  it  was  won,  and  now  people 
wonder  that  there  was  any  fight  at  all. 

1  Ogden,  Life  and  Letters. 


58    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

Five  months  later  (Nation,  May  22,  1902),  Mr.  Garri- 
son paid  the  last  tribute  to  his  friend  and  associate. 
Strictly  just  to  the  subject,  it  is  no  less  characteristic  of 
the  writer.  Mr.  Garrison  said: 

A  great  journalist  has  departed.  His  name,  absolutely  un- 
known to  the  American  public  in  1865,  blazed  up  instantly  upon 
the  appearance  of  the  Nation,  at  a  moment  when  Bennett  and 
Bryant,  Greeley  and  Raymond  were  approaching  the  end  of 
their  careers,  leaving  no  successors.  He  was  not  a  great  editor 
in  the  sense  of  being  an  organizer  or  manager.  The  Nation  was 
avowedly  patterned  after  the  London  Spectator;  the  Evening 
Post  was  already  in  its  ninth  decade  when  Mr.  Godkin  joined 
Messrs.  Carl  Schurz  and  Horace  White  in  assuming  editorial 
direction  of  it.  He  had,  strictly  speaking,  no  business  instinct, 
no  faculty  for  details,  nor  any  liking  for  the  task  of  coordinat- 
ing the  departments  of  a  daily  newspaper.  He  was  par  excel- 
lence a  leader-writer,  with  an  astonishing  productiveness,  and 
a  freshness  in  handling  old  themes  which  won  even  the  hard- 
ened proof-reader's  admiration.  The  prospectus  of  the  Nation 
laid  stress  upon  the  advantages  of  a  weekly  over  a  daily  news- 
paper in  respect  of  leisure  for  ascertainment  of  the  facts  and 
deliberation  in  comment;  and  the  argument  was  as  incontro- 
vertible in  1881,  when  Mr.  Godkin  became  one  of  the  editors 
of  the  Evening  Post,  as  it  was  in  1865.  The  change  might  not 
have  come  about  had  the  Nation  prospered  so  as  to  warrant 
an  enlargement  of  its  staff.  The  strain  of  writing  from  three  to 
five  pages  for  it  weekly  was  felt  at  last  to  be  too  severe  as  well 
as  too  unremunerative,  in  view  of  the  scrutiny  to  which  Mr. 
Godkin  was  subjected  while  all  but  single-handed. 

Apart  from  the  resultant  greater  conspicuity,  the  merging 
of  the  weekly  editor  in  the  daily  was  not  a  promotion,  for  the 
Nation  had  already  placed  him  in  the  front  rank  of  American 
journalists  even  during  the  lifetime  of  the  veterans  we  have 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    59 

mentioned.  It  was  a  familiar  flattery  to  have  his  articles  made 
over  at  a  safe  interval  in  a  metropolitan  daily;  and  in  the  coun- 
try at  large  the  practice  was  still  more  common.  The  Nation 
was  eagerly  read  in  every  newspaper  office  of  importance,  and 
its  ideas  filtered  down  without  acknowledgment  through  a 
thousand  channels.  On  the  other  hand,  in  his  new  position, 
Mr.  Godkin  became  inevitably  a  greater  target  for  censure  and 
abuse;  the  more  because  a  New  York  daily  must  needs  come 
to  close  quarters  with  local  corruption  and  misrule,  and  its 
editor  be  more  exposed  to  pay  with  his  person  for  incurring  the 
wrath  of  organized  iniquity.  This  Mr.  Godkin  did  in  his  memo- 
rable campaign  against  Tammany. 

Few  journalists  have  labored  less  whose  writing  was  of  as 
high  a  quality  as  Mr.  Godkin's.  His  pen  was  fluent  and  ready, 
but  his  diction  was  never  careless;  rather  it  bore  at  all  times 
the  marks  of  training  and  culture  of  a  high  order.  While  able  to 
develop  a  subject  at  any  length,  he  had  extraordinary  apti- 
tude for  paragraph  writing;  his  touch  in  either  case  was  al- 
ways light,  his  matter  always  pithy.  His  expression  was  very 
direct,  vigorous,  and  trenchant;  and  he  had  an  exceptional  gift 
for  descriptive  narration.  His  style,  indeed,  was  adequate  for 
every  use  to  which  he  applied  it,  and  passed  without  effort 
from  the  journalistic  to  the  literary  vein,  treating  nothing  that 
it  did  not  adorn.  Such  adaptability  is  seldom  encountered, 
and  perhaps  the  nearest  parallel  to  his  is  to  be  found  in  the 
writings  of  Harriet  Martineau,  long  an  editorial  contributor  to 
the  Daily  News.  Mr.  Godkin's  humor,  which 

"  was  ever 
Lance  and  sword  to  him,  and  buckler  and  helmet," 

perplexed  the  simple-minded,  while  it  enraged  his  enemies.  Its 
droll  visualizing  quality  lightened  every  page  that  he  wrote 
for  the  Nation.  On  this  side  he  has  never  been  surpassed,  if 
approached,  and  the  effectiveness  of  his  humor  as  a  political 


60    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

weapon  consisted  in  the  freedom  with  which  he  directed  it 
against  the  objects  of  a  sham  popular  and  partisan  reverence. 
He  owed  this  freedom,  undeniably,  to  the  foreign  birth  with 
which  he  was  constantly  reproached;  but  it  was  his  humor 
which  first  pierced  the  glamour  and  enabled  him  to  see  men 
and  policies  in  a  dry  light.  Biting  as  it  might  be,  it  was  never 
cynical.  His  conversation  was  naturally  playful  and  seasoned 
with  a  hearty  laughter,  and  his  daily  companionship  most 
delightful. 

As  no  American  could  have  written  Bryce's  "American  Com- 
monwealth" or  Goldwin  Smith's  "History  of  the  United 
States,"  so  it  may  be  doubted  if  any  native  of  this  country 
could  have  erected  the  standard  of  political  independence 
which  Mr.  Godkin  set  up  in  the  Nation  and  maintained  in  the 
Evening  Post.  He  did  this,  however,  not  as  a  foreigner,  but  as 
an  American  to  the  core.  A  utilitarian  of  the  school  of  Bentham, 
an  economist  of  the  school  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  an  English 
Liberal  to  whom  America,  with  all  its  flagrant  inconsistency 
of  slaveholding,  was  still  the  hope  of  universal  democracy,  he 
cast  in  his  lot  with  us,  became  a  naturalized  citizen,  took  an 
American  wife  —  gave  every  pledge  to  the  land  of  his  adop- 
tion except  that  of  being  a  servile  follower  of  party.  He  brought 
to  his  high  calling  sound  principles  of  finance,  with  which  he 
fought  the  good  fight  of  honest  money,  specie  payments,  and 
currency  reform;  of  political  economy,  with  which  he  com- 
bated protection  and  its  attendant  corruption;  of  popular 
government,  which  stood  by  him  in  the  removal  of  the  Recon- 
struction scandal;  of  office  as  a  public  trust,  which  made  his 
journal  the  most  potent  medium  for  the  promotion  of  civil- 
service  reform  and  the  exposure  of  machine  and  boss  govern- 
ment. Nowhere  is  there  such  a  body  of  useful  doctrine  for 
serious-minded  youth  seeking  to  fit  themselves  to  be  "  perfect 
citizens"  (as  was  said  of  the  late  John  M.  Forbes)  as  the  files 
of  the  Nation  contain  during  Mr.  Godkin's  thirty-five  years' 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    61 

connection  with  it.  Nowhere  can  the  historically-minded  man 
more  profitably  turn  for  light  upon  our  latter-day  decadence. 

Many  volumes  of  speeches  are  compiled,  but  few  are  read 
long  after  their  publication,  and  the  same  oblivion  more  cer- 
tainly overtakes  the  political  editor's  monument.  His  conten- 
tion is  for  the  hour;  his  triumph  is  in  his  shaping  of  passing 
events.  Those,  however,  whom  curiosity  or  study  leads  to 
examine  the  writings  of  Mr.  Godkin,  will  find  them  distin- 
guished by  a  philosophic  cast  not  unknown  to  American 
oratory  before  the  war,  but  so  ominously  wanting  in  the 
legislative  debates  of  the  past  two  decades.  It  may  be  that 
Mr.  Godkin  will  be  currently  quoted  hereafter  no  more  than 
Greeley,  but  not  for  the  same  reason.  His  text  abounds  in 
broad  general  sentiments  and  reflections  such  as  find  cor- 
roboration wherever  "history  repeats  itself,"  and  which  in 
fact  have  in  them  the  essence  of  prophecy.  The  number  of 
fortunate  predictions,  both  generic  and  specific,  was  truly 
notable  in  Mr.  Godkin's  case. 

His  judgment,  as  was  proper  in  one  whose  function  was  criti- 
cism, was  as  rare  a  faculty  as  any  that  he  possessed.  Applied 
to  public  characters,  it  was  almost  unerring;  and  to  measures, 
seldom  at  fault.  To  say  that  it  was  wholly  unaffected  by  the 
heat  of  controversy,  or  was  free  from  occasional  excess  or  un- 
fairness, would  be  an  unnatural  claim.  But  time  itself  has 
already  approved  the  more  significant  estimates  placed  by  him 
upon  the  men  of  his  day;  and  where  the  legend  is  more  lenient, 
it  will  be  found  that  the  popular  memory  is  defective.  The 
application  of  his  judgment  to  causes  was,  it  is  needless  to 
remark,  purely  ethical,  and  divorced  from  considerations  of 
the  winning  or  the  losing  side.  Sed  victa  Catoni  was  honor 
enough  for  him.  Yet  when  one  enumerates  all  the  crazes  past, 
all  the  dangers  averted,  and  all  the  advances  won  in  the  strug- 
gle for  good  government  on  this  continent,  Mr.  Godkin's  men- 
tal balance  is  clearly  apparent  to  those  who  remember  his 


62    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

attitude  towards  each.  And  if  we  extend  our  consideration 
to  foreign  affairs,  we  can  but  admire  his  treatment  of  them  in 
former  years,  when  he  followed  them  more  closely  and  "  saw 
what  he  foresaw."  In  this  department  his  superiority  was  pre- 
eminent. In  domestic  affairs  his  judgment  reposed  on  faith 
in  the  American  character  and  in  the  ultimate  sanity  of  de- 
mocracy. If  it  was  often  disappointed,  it  was  often  gloriously 
vindicated. 

There  was  occasion  enough  for  melancholy  in  retrospect. 
Specific  reforms  with  a  definite  aim  in  view  attainable  by  legis- 
lation may  reach  a  happy  conclusion.  Such  was  the  fate  of 
the  anti-slavery  agitation,  and  those  who  began  it  lived  to  see 
the  fruit  thereof.  Their  active  labors  lasted,  including  the  civil 
war,  but  thirty-five  years  —  little  more  than  a  generation.  For 
precisely  the  same  term  Mr.  Godkin  strove  —  above  all  —  to 
create  a  spirit  of  independence  of  party  and  to  abolish  the 
spoils  system  of  government.  The  task  was  more  difficult  than 
the  destruction  of  slavery.  He  witnessed  a  beginning  of  civil- 
service  reform  in  the  national  domain  and  in  one  or  two 
States;  yet  witnessed  a  ceaseless  attack  upon  it  in  all,  an  eva- 
sion of  it  where  possible,  a  betrayal  of  it  by  a  President  com- 
mitted to  the  support  of  it  —  amid  the  general  apathy  of  the 
people  at  large.  He  saw,  at  the  Presidential  election  of  1896, 
party  ascendency  secured  by  pledges,  made  to  be  broken, 
which  for  the  moment  confounded  party  lines.  He  saw  the 
Democratic  party  manifest  at  one  time  a  miraculous  power  of 
self-regeneration,  only  to  sink  back  into  the  deepest  of  its 
abysses;  the  Republican  party  all  the  while  stolidly  implacable 
towards  its  come-outers  for  conscience'  sake.  Worse  yet,  he 
saw  public  men  of  both  parties  involved  in  a  repudiation  of 
the  fundamental  maxims  of  our  republican  experiment,  and 
the  conversion  of  a  self-contained,  peaceful,  industrious  de- 
mocracy into  an  earth-hungry  belligerent,  seeking  points  of 
hostile  contact  with  the  most  warlike  monarchies. 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    63 

"  He  grew  old  in  an  age  he  condemned, 
Felt  the  dissolving  throes 
Of  a  Social  order  he  loved, 
And,  like  Theban  seer, 

Died  in  his  enemies'  day." 

It  testifies  to  the  fibre  of  a  moralist  whom  the  infirmity  of 
age  was  consciously  drawing  from  the  scene,  that  he  was 
neither  soured  nor  dejected  by  such  a  prospect.  It  was  in  Mr. 
Godkin's  mind  to  strive  to  the  end.  His  formal  retirement, 
however,  from  the  Evening  Post  was  none  too  soon  for  his  fail- 
ing strength  of  body.  Though  he  recovered,  beyond  all  expec- 
tations, from  an  apoplectic  stroke  incurred  on  Febrary  4,  1900, 
and  continued  to  write  at  intervals  for  this  journal  during  an- 
other twelve-month,  he  could  not  complete  the  revision  of  his 
Reminiscences,  for  which  many  publishers  had  besought  him, 
and  we  shall  never  have  his  own  summing-up  of  his  life-work 
—  wherein  it  satisfied  him  to  remember,  where  haply  it  fell 
short  in  method,  manner,  or  temper,  what  title  it  gave  him  to 
good  fame  and  lasting  human  gratitude.  Some  who  first  heard 
his  trumpet-call  and  have  had  their  spiritual  natures  deter- 
mined by  his  lofty  and  disinterested  teaching  —  call  it  preach- 
ing, if  you  will,  and  his  press  a  religious  press  —  have  recently 
publicly  confessed  their  indebtedness.  More  will  be  moved  to 
do  so  now;  and  more  still,  alas!  —  a  multitude  —  will  never 
know  what  benefaction  they  have  received  from  his  hand, 
who  moulded  for  good  the  generation  from  which  they  sprung. 

Many  able  pens  have  supplemented  Mr.  Garrison's 
judgment  of  his  associate  with  reminiscences  of  his  public 
activities  and  light  personal  touches.  None  has  inquired 
into  the  secret  of  his  success  as  a  writer  with  greater 
philosophic  depth  than  Professor  A.  V.  Dicey,  who  wrote 
of  him :  * 

1  Nation,  Semi-Centennial  Number. 


64    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

A  little  study  of  Godkin's  writings  is  quite  enough  to  prove 
that  his  knowledge  of  the  matters  on  which  he  wrote,  in  so  far 
as  it  did  not  arise  from  his  observation  of  life,  was  due  to  the 
careful  perusal  of  books,  and  of  good  books.  Then  he  had  a 
talent  absolutely  essential  to  the  success  of  a  pamphleteer.  It 
is  the  gift  of  "appositeness,"  or,  in  other  words,  a  writer's  habit 
of  interesting  himself  in  the  matters  which  are  passing  before 
every  one's  eyes,  and  which  at  a  given  moment  occupy  the 
thoughts  of  his  neighbors.  It  will  be  found  that  men  of  con- 
siderable intellectual  power  are  sometimes  disqualified  from 
gaining  influence  as  pamphleteers  or  journalists,  because  such 
men  have  a  tendency  to  turn  their  minds  at  a  given  moment 
towards  subjects  which,  whether  important  or  not,  have  no 
interest  for  the  ordinary  public  or  the  so-called  general  reader. 
An  illustration  best  shows  the  nature  of  this  error.  Vain,  in- 
deed, would  be  the  labors  of  a  man  who  in  this  year  1915 
addressed  the  English  public  about  woman  suffrage  or  pro- 
portional representation.  Englishmen  who  care  about  the  con- 
duct of  public  affairs  are  thinking  about  the  war,  and  nothing 
but  the  war,  and  probably  they  are  right  in  turning  away  their 
minds  from  every  subject  not  connected  with  the  conduct  of 
the  war.  But  whether  they  are  wrong  or  right,  no  born  jour- 
nalist will  ever  waste  his  skill  in  trying  to  force  upon  the  Eng- 
lish world  topics  to  which  that  world  will  pay  no  attention.  It 
was  one  proof  of  Godkin's  genial  nature  and  common  sense  that 
he  always  brought  his  powers  of  thought  and  his  capacity  for 
lucid  exposition  to  the  examination  of  questions  which  at  a 
given  moment  both  concerned  and  interested  the  citizens  of 
the  United  States. 

But  let  no  one  suppose  that  the  gifts  of  a  pamphleteer  are 
enough  to  insure  his  success  as  a  leader  of  opinion.  Cobbett 
was  at  one  moment  the  leading  journalist  or  pamphleteer  of 
his  day.  He  possessed  shrewd  sense,  homespun  eloquence,  and 
independence  of  judgment.    He  is  still  credited  by  admirers 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    65 

with  a  genuine  interest  in  the  welfare  of  the  poor.  But  as  a 
leader  of  public  opinion  his  career  was  a  failure.  He  lacked  the 
virtues  which  in  England,  as  in  America,  transformed  an 
active  agitator  into  a  trusted  leader  of  men. 

The  second  cause  of  Godkin's  success  was  of  a  quality  which, 
where  it  exists,  every  man  perceives,  but  very  few  of  us  can 
define.  It  is  best  described  by  the  term  "character."  Instead 
of  attempting  definition,  I  propose  to  enumerate  some  few  of 
the  traits  by  which  God  kin  convinced  all  men  of  sound  judg- 
ment that  the  editor  of  the  Nation  was  a  man  of  character. 
From  the  very  opening  of  his  career  as  a  journalist,  and  years 
before  the  Nation  was  founded,  he  had  shown  the  capacity  for 
acquiring  the  trust  of  every  man  who  really  knew  him.  Very 
soon  after  his  arrival  in  the  United  States  he  gained  the  es- 
teem of  a  body  of  friends  mostly  connected  with  the  Univer- 
sity of  Harvard,  who  formed  the  glory  of  Boston.  It  is  hardly 
an  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  Nation  was  originally  created 
in  order  that  the  men  who  trusted  Godkin  might  find  for  him  a 
field  in  which  his  genius  could  be  best  employed  for  the  advan- 
tage of  the  whole  American  commonwealth.  It  soon  then  be- 
came apparent  that  Godkin,  besides  his  trustworthiness,  was 
endowed  with  a  gift  which  does  not  necessarily  fall  even  to  an 
able  and  a  perfectly  honest  pamphleteer.  Though  he  gained 
his  influence  by  his  pen,  he  was  by  nature  a  man  of  action  as 
much  as  a  man  of  letters.  It  may  well  be  that  an  eminent 
writer  and  a  man  inspired  with  high  public  spirit  is  by  nature 
nothing  but  a  critic.  Such  a  man  may  well  play  an  important 
part  in  the  formation  of  public  opinion.  He  may  warn  the 
country  against  the  acceptance  of  popular  fallacies.  He  may 
denounce  politicians  who  are  undeserving  of  trust,  but  he  will 
hardly  be  numbered  among  the  leaders  of  a  people  or  a  party. 
Criticism,  after  all,  for  the  most  part,  deals  with  negations. 
It  warns  men  against  errors;  it  does  not  tell  them  how  to  act  on 
some  critical  occasion.   Now,  Godkin  was  no  mere  critic.   His 


66    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

thought  lay  very  near  to  action.  He  was  a  good  adviser;  he 
had  the  capacity  for  pointing  out  in  a  time  of  difficulty  the 
right  course  of  action.  If  he  was  once  convinced,  say,  that  a 
judge  of  New  York  was  guilty  of  judicial  misconduct,  Godkin 
could  never  stop  at  exposing  the  offender's  errors.  Godkin 
was  not  satisfied  till  he  had  driven  the  corrupt  judge  from  the 
office  he  disgraced.  If  a  statesman  was  accused  of  conduct 
which  morally  unfitted  him  for  high  office,  Godkin  was  certain 
to  press  the  accusation  home,  and,  until  it  was  disposed  of, 
was  ready  to  move  heaven  and  earth  in  order  to  prevent  a 
political  leader  of  fame  and  of  influence  from  obtaining  a  posi- 
tion of  which  Godkin  deemed  him  unworthy. 

This  capacity  of  making  action  the  immediate  result  of 
thought  is  so  closely  connected  with  the  highest  statesmanship 
that  admirers  of  Godkin  may  occasionally  regret  that  he  had 
not  the  opportunity  of  playing  a  direct  part  in  the  public  life 
of  the  country  whereof  he  ultimately  became  a  citizen.  It  also 
suggests  a  last  feature  in  Godkin's  character  and  in  his  views  of 
public  life  on  which  it  is  worth  while  to  dwell  with  emphasis, 
just  because  it  will  hardly  be  noted,  except  by  the  body  of  men, 
now  rapidly  dying  off,  who  have  been,  speaking  broadly,  God- 
kin's  contemporaries.  When  he  came  to  the  United  States, 
Godkin  was  a  mid- Victorian  who  thoroughly  shared  and  sym- 
pathized with  the  liberalism  or  radicalism  which  from,  say 
1845  to  1880,  colored  the  whole  public  life  of  the  United  King- 
dom. And  Godkin,  be  it  remarked,  accepted  the  political 
creed  of  the  mid-Victorian  era  in  its  wisest  and  in  its  noblest 
form.  He  accepted  the  maxim  then  adopted  by  almost  every 
Liberal  that  the  object  of  rational  government  should  be  the 
attainment  of  "peace,  retrenchment,  and  reform."  He  was 
no  pacifist.  He  sympathized,  like  most  Liberals  of  the  day, 
with  the  Crimean  War,  which  was  popularly  held  to  be  an  at- 
tack on  European  despotism  and  certainly  did  facilitate  the 
liberation  and  the  unification  of  Italy.    But  he  maintained 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    67 

throughout  life  that,  though  war  might  be  sometimes  a  neces- 
sity, peace  was  the  necessary  condition  of  progressive  improve- 
ment, and  he  has  been  heard  to  argue,  not  without  force,  that 
Roman  success  in  war  was  at  bottom  grounded  on  the  disci- 
pline imposed  by  severe  training  in  the  virtues  of  civil  life. 

Retrenchment,  or  the  cutting-down  of  unnecessary  expen- 
diture by  the  state,  was  to  the  best  of  my  belief  always  with 
God  kin  desirable,  because  the  lightening  of  taxes  both  relieved 
the  pressure  of  taxation  upon  the  poorer  classes  and  in  effect 
increased  the  area  of  individual  freedom.  Reform,  lastly,  was 
with  mid- Victorian  Liberals,  and  certainly  with  Godkin,  a 
matter  of  wider  significance  than  any  mere  improvement  in 
the  constitution  of  Parliament.  It  meant  the  gradual,  the  con- 
sidered, and  therefore  the  effective,  removal  of  every  demon- 
strated evil  which  could  be  curable  either  by  legislation  or  by 
the  improvement  of  social  habits  or  sentiments.  It  also  was 
the  rejection  no  less  of  the  dull  conservatism  which  aimed 
merely  at  keeping  all  things,  or  at  any  rate  all  things  not  ab- 
solutely evil,  exactly  as  they  were,  than  of  the  revolutionary 
schemes  which,  even  if  unconnected  with  lawless  violence, 
assumed  that  even  the  best  institutions  existing  in  the  civil- 
ized world  ought  to  undergo  a  fundamental  change.  No  one 
can  doubt  that  Godkin,  whose  knowledge  of  life  was  wider  and 
far  more  varied  than  that  of  many  statesmen,  and  whose  Irish 
birth  and  education  had  in  many  directions  extended  his  sym- 
pathies, gave  a  very  wide  sense  to  reform.  Still  it  is  perfectly 
plain  that,  like  a  true  mid- Victorian  Liberal,  he  was  neither 
an  obstructive  Conservative  nor  in  any  sense  a  revolutionist. 
He  was  in  short  a  mid- Victorian  reformer.  .  .  . 

In  him  at  least  were  strongly  developed  two  virtues  which 
will  ultimately  be  admitted  to  be  characteristics  of  the  Vic- 
torian age.  The  one  was  the  stern  belief  that  reform,  and  con- 
stant reform,  was  the  law  of  progress,  and  that  reform  must 
be  based  upon  the  dictates  of  enlightened  common  sense.  The 


68    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

other  was  an  intense  hatred  of  injustice,  and  especially  of  in- 
justice which,  being  committed  by  mobs,  is  the  odious  parody 
of  judicial  punishment.  Godkin  at  any  rate  might  at  all  times 
use  the  words  to  be  found  somewhere  in  the  works  of  the  witti- 
est as  well  as  the  most  sensible  of  English  pamphleteers:  "I 
am  an  enthusiast  for  common  sense;  I  am  a  fanatic  for  common 
justice." 

In  nothing  else  was  this  combination  of  clear  common 
sense  with  unflagging  zeal  for  common  justice  so  ap- 
parent as  in  the  ceaseless  pleading  for  better  municipal 
conditions  carried  on  for  so  many  years  by  Mr.  Godkin 
and  the  Nation.  The  war  against  the  Tammany  chief- 
tains declared  by  Mr.  Godkin  in  1890  was  but  the  cul- 
mination of  an  activity  begun  with  the  founding  of  his 
paper  in  1865.  In  the  campaign  of  1890  Mr.  Godkin 
caused  to  be  prepared,  for  publication  in  the  Evening 
Post,  a  series  of  merciless  biographical  sketches  of  Tam- 
many leaders.  The  subjects  thus  shown  up  in  their  proper 
light  answered  with  charges  of  libel.  Mr.  Godkin  was 
arrested,  and  summons  after  summons  was  served  upon 
him,  but  the  Grand  Jury  found  that  there  was  no  cause 
for  action,  and  all  the  cases  were  dismissed.  As  in  the  cam- 
paign of  1890,  so  in  1892,  and  in  1894  Mr.  Godkin  spoke  in 
ringing  terms  against  Tammany  iniquity,  and  when  the 
foe  seemed  vanquished  at  last,  a  number  of  his  admirers 
united  in  an  acknowledgment  of  his  services  to  the  city 
and  the  country  by  presenting  him  with  a  loving  cup. 

Two  letters  of  the  many  that  were  addressed  to  Mr. 
Godkin  on  this  occasion  by  eminent  men  may  be  re- 
printed. President  Gilman,  of  Johns  Hopkins  Univer- 
sity, wrote  (April  1,  1895) : 

I  am  one  of  "your  boys"  and  of  course  the  recognition  of  the 
Master  is  most  grateful.    I  well  remember  your  words,  just 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    69 

twenty  years  ago,  when  I  passed  through  New  York,  after  my 
first  visit  to  Baltimore,  and  I  go  farther  back  and  remember 
your  project  for  the  Nation,  —  way  back  in  New  Haven  days. 
Few  numbers  of  the  Nation  have  appeared  in  all  that  time 
which  I  have  not  read,  and  if  I  have  kept  a  steady  head  during 
this  long  period  it  is  due  in  no  small  degree  to  the  intellectual 
and  political  inspiration  that  I  have  received  from  its  pages.1 

James  Bryce  sent  Mr.   Godkin  the  following  letter 

(February  17) : 

Thank  you  for  your  very  interesting  letter.  Shortly  before 
it  came,  we  had  heard  from  Randolph  Robinson  of  the  gift  of 
the  loving  cup,  and  were  rejoiced  that  some  appreciation  had 
been  shown  of  your  inestimable  services  to  good  government 
not  only  in  New  York,  but  in  the  United  States  generally .  I  am 
sure  it  is  not  friendship,  but  such  little  knowledge  as  I  have 
gamed,  that  makes  me  feel  that  no  person  in  this  generation 
has  done  as  much  to  stem  the  current  of  evil  and  preach  a  high 
ideal  of  public  duty  and  of  political  honesty  as  you  have.  Nor 
has  any  one  had  more  annoyances  or  even  dangers  confront- 
ing him,  though  your  very  courage  has  abashed  your  enemies. 
So  it  was  a  sincere  pleasure  that  this  tribute  should  have  been 
paid  to  you.1 

To  the  end  of  his  career  as  a  writer  Mr.  Godkin's  ar- 
ticles glowed  with  the  same  zeal  for  the  public  good,  the 
same  indignation  against  public  malefactors  which  in- 
spired his  pen  in  the  early  days  of  the  Nation.  What  he 
said  on  the  downfall  of  Tweed  (Nation,  October  18, 1877) 
bears  its  lesson  to  citizens  of  New  Y'ork  even  at  a  later 
and  more  hopeful  day. 

The  few  years  which  have  elapsed  since  the  period  of  Tweed's 
exploits  have  already  to  a  considerable  extent  disconnected  our 

1  Ogden,  Life  and  Letters. 


70    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

feelings  from  the  facts  of  his  public  history,  and  as  the  once 
familiar  names  of  his  associates  appear  and  reappear  in  the 
dreary  testimony  which  for  several  weeks  past  he  has  been 
pouring  out  before  a  committee  of  Aldermen,  the  impression 
made  upon  the  listener  is  not  unlike  that  made  by  the  repeti- 
tion of  an  old  story  already  partly  forgotten.  The  confined 
"statesman"  himself  gives  his  recital  with  the  air  of  an  old 
campaigner  who  still  chuckles  from  long  habit  over  the  mem- 
ory of  his  deeds,  but  whose  feelings  only  occasionally  become 
enlisted  in  the  narrative.  Indeed,  the  nonchalance  of  the  re- 
later,  his  apparent  indifference  to  the  effect  of  his  statements, 
and  insensibility  to  their  moral  bearings,  are,  in  some  respects, 
the  most  interesting  phenomena  of  his  examination.  Some  of 
his  answers  to  questions,  if  we  could  but  set  aside  for  the  mo- 
ment our  knowledge  of  his  career,  would  have  all  the  effect  of 
genuine  naivete,  and,  as  it  is,  we  are  surprised  into  a  forget- 
fulness  of  our  habitual  disgust  for  the  man,  and  are  led  away 
into  fruitless  speculations  concerning  his  psychological  state. 
Tweed,  in  fact,  possesses  something  of  the  interest  which  the 
physician  attaches  to  an  overgrown  tumor  or  other  abnormal 
development,  the  dissection  or  treatment  of  which  constitutes 
the  doctor's  "beautiful  case"  even  when  the  causes  of  its  exist- 
ence are  not  wholly  fathomable.  To  the  pious  clergymen  of 
the  old  school,  Tweed,  of  course,  presents  no  difficulties.  He 
is  simply  "given  over"  to  "hardness  of  heart,"  and  may  be 
employed,  if  occasion  require,  as  an  awful  example,  without 
any  necessity  of  explanation.  But  it  is  worth  noticing  here  that 
Tweed  does  not  regard  himself  as  "given  over"  or  in  any  es- 
pecial need  of  explanation.  On  the  contrary,  he  has  evidently, 
on  the  whole,  a  rather  comfortable  feeling  of  satisfaction  with 
himself  as  he  looks  back  on  his  past  record,  and  cherishes  a 
somewhat  tarnished  hope  that  his  reputation  as  well  as  his 
person  may  yet  be  redeemed  from  the  assaults  of  his  enemies 
and  oppressors.    "Ah!  politics,  politics,"  he  remarked  to  a 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    71 

friend  as  he  left  the  City  Hall  at  the  close  of  one  of  his  last  in- 
terviews with  his  tormentors,  "  I  am  suffering  from  them  now." 
And  he  probably,  in  part  at  least,  believes  this,  and  in  his  fall 
from  power  is  not  without  some  of  the  consolations  of  the  mar- 
tyr at  the  rack. 

A  man  who  can  deliberately  assert  with  reference  to  his  pres- 
ent course,  "I  believe  I  am  doing  right,  and  am  willing  to  sub- 
mit myself  to  the  just  criticism  of  any  and  all  honest  men,"  is 
not  wholly  cast  down  or  likely  to  regard  himself  as  a  monster 
of  iniquity.  That  he  has  no  suspicion  of  his  chieftainship 
among  sinners  is  apparent  also  from  the  connection  of  the 
above  words.  They  are  found  in  a  written  outburst  of  indig- 
nation against  Mr.  John  Morrissey,  State  Senator  and  ex- 
pugilist,  some  of  whose  questions,  proposed  to  the  Committee, 
Tweed  had  been  compelled  to  answer.  Morrissey  is  taken  to 
task  roundly  for  some  of  the  misdemeanors  of  his  early  life,  and 
shown  up  as  an  unfit  person  to  question  the  ex-boss,  although 
the  latter  admits  that  "as  an  organizer  of  repeaters  he  had  no 
superior,  and  at  the  time  when  the  Ring  was  in  power  such 
capacity  was  always  recognized."  Even  the  most  serious  crimes 
are  transfigured  in  the  sight  of  this  peculiar  moral  ist  and  become 
satisfying  virtues.  Perjury  is  not  confessed,  —  for  to  use  that 
word  would  be  to  imply  that  he  regarded  it  as  wrong,  —  but 
referred  to  as  a  natural  consequence  of  certain  circumstances, 
and  its  special  effects  are  complacently  spoken  of:  "The  under- 
standing was  that  men's  families  and  themselves  should  be 
protected,  and  we  all  agreed  to  stand  by  that.  .  .  .  My  testi- 
mony was  given  to  save  men  and  their  families,  and  a  great 
many  were  saved.  Most  of  it  was  false."  It  is  evident,  indeed, 
even  to  the  most  cursory  reader  of  the  recent  revelations,  that 
Tweed,  in  his  own  estimation,  is  not  a  criminal,  but  "a  man 
of  the  times" — an  unfortunate,  it  may  be,  but  none  the  less 
unusually  clever  representative  of  his  age.  It  is  true  he  ad- 
mits that  in  his  testimony  he  does  not  "favor"  himself  as  a 


72    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

good  and  honest  man,  but  even  this  expression  implies  a  de- 
cided recognition  of  some  share  of  goodness  in  his  moral  make- 
up, and,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  even  of  honesty. 

And  it  cannot  be  denied,  we  think,  that  in  a  certain  sense 
he  is  indeed  "a  man  of  the  times,"  and  from  one  point  of  view, 
therefore,  entitled  to  recognition  as  a  representative  man.  His 
insatiable  greed  for  money  was  accompanied  by  a  good  share 
of  capacity  for  control.  Not  very  many  years  ago,  therefore, 
under  a  somewhat  different  civilization,  he  would  have  been, 
without  doubt,  a  freebooter  or  brigand,  and,  at  the  head  of  a 
troop  of  followers,  would  have  robbed  upon  the  highway  or 
plundered  villages  or  laid  towns  under  tribute.  But  in  a  differ- 
ent generation,  when  brigandage  had  changed  its  form  and 
become  possible  only  as  modified  into  carpet-baggery,  Credit- 
Mobilier  companies,  freedmen's  savings-banks,  forgeries,  and 
all  the  peculiar  manifestations  of  the  speculative  era  which 
ended  (or  at  least  came  to  a  crisis)  four  years  ago,  Tweed  took 
his  position  by  a  sort  of  natural  selection  or  fitness  for  the  times, 
and  his  career  was  such  as  might  have  been  prophesied  by  a 
wise  observer  of  the  man  and  his  opportunities.  He  was  as 
dependent  upon  his  surroundings  as,  in  a  somewhat  analogous 
way,  the  Italian  brigand  is,  or  was  until  recently,  dependent 
upon  the  villagers  around  him.  Tweed  could  have  done  nothing 
without  the  Watsons,  Keysers,  Joneses,  and  Garveys  who 
abetted  him,  as  well  as  the  Halls,  Connollys,  Sweeneys,  and 
other  members  of  his  band  who  plundered  with  him,  without 
legislators  willing  to  be  bribed  as  well  as  tradesmen  willing  to 
connive.  Tweed  was  an  amazing  villain,  but  was  nevertheless 
a  legitimate  outcome  of  his  time,  and  his  present  complacency, 
or  absence  of  conviction  of  sin,  as  our  clerical  friends  might 
express  it,  is  readily  explainable  in  view  of  his  associates  and 
opportunities. 

But  has  his  day  gone  by?  His  particular  hour  is  undoubtedly 
past,  but  we  are  not  so  sure  that  the  day  of  great  criminals  is 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    73 

ended.  The  ever-increasing  complexities  of  modern  civiliza- 
tion furnish  greater  opportunities  alike  for  saints  and  devils. 
Our  social  forces  are  so  powerful  that  a  slight  derangement  of 
them,  sure  to  be  taken  advantage  of  by  the  criminal  class, 
works  infinite  mischief.  As  civilization  tends  to  make  wars  less 
frequent,  but  —  owing  to  the  invention  of  more  highly  de- 
structive agencies,  and  the  enormous  expensiveness  of  vaster 
armaments,  with  the  attendant  financial  derangements  and  in- 
terference with  commercial  relations  —  makes  them  more  ter- 
rible than  ever  before,  it  is  probable  also  that,  in  a  somewhat 
analogous  sense,  civilization  is  reducing  the  number  of  crimi- 
nals, but,  for  the  time  being,  furnishes  opportunities  for  greater 
crime  and  the  production  therefore  of  more  amazing  criminals 
than  ever  before.  Whether  highway  robberies,  larcenies,  and 
the  like  are  diminishing  or  not,  may  be  an  open  question,  with 
the  chances  in  favor  of  an  affirmative  decision,  but  of  more 
stupendous  crimes  —  forgeries,  defalcations,  breaches  of  trust, 
swindles,  and  systematic  peculations  —  we  have  witnessed 
recently  a  plentiful  amount.  Besides,  Tweed  and  the  Southern 
carpet-baggers  may  be  said  to  have  made  one  distinct  addition 
to  the  catalogue  of  crime,  as  remarkable  for  its  novelty  as  for 
its  magnitude,  and  that  is  the  seizure  of  a  government  by  a 
band  of  criminals,  for  the  purpose  not  only  of  dividing  the  taxes 
among  themselves  but  of  pledging  the  public  credit  for  their 
own  use  and  behoof.  This  is  something  absolutely  new,  and  is 
peculiar  to  this  age  and  country.  Adventurers  have  seized  on 
the  sovereignty  of  great  communities  before  now,  but  it  was 
through  love  of  power  mainly  —  love  of  money  only  second- 
arily —  and  they  have  always  had  some  sentiment,  tradition, 
and  prestige  at  their  back,  and  have  had  some  political  ambi- 
tion. Our  "rings"  have  been  in  pursuit  principally  of  "com- 
missions," "divvies,"  or  merely  furniture  and  jewelry. 

There  is  one  thing  more  which  is  important  to  be  noticed 
here.    Social  science,  notwithstanding  its  manifold  imperfec- 


74     FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

tions  in  many  respects,  teaches  plainly  that  great  crimes  indi- 
cate, or  any  extraordinary  prevalence  of  crime  of  any  kind  in- 
dicates, a  cause  probably  preventible;  and  not  unfrequently, 
also,  there  is  suggested  at  the  same  time  an  obvious  remedy. 
Tweed  was  the  manifestation  of  a  social  disease,  the  particular 
cause  of  which  becomes  apparent  on  investigation  as  certainly 
as  some  fevers  may  be  referred  without  doubt  to  defective 
drainage  or  malarial  poison  or  improper  food.  The  handling  of 
enormous  sums  of  money,  and  consequent  opportunities  to 
abstract  "percentages,"  was  made  possible  to  Tweed  for  so 
many  years  solely  by  reason  of  our  vicious  system  of  muni- 
cipal organization  —  a  system  which,  in  its  worst  features,  is 
repeated  in  nearly  all  the  large  cities  in  the  nation,  and  has 
fastened  upon  them  all  modifications  of  the  same  evil  from 
which  New  York  has  suffered  so  terribly.  We  have  for  a  long 
time  permitted  all  the  paupers  and  criminals  in  the  commu- 
nity —  those  who  have  no  interest  whatever  in  municipal  ad- 
ministration beyond  fear  of  the  policeman  or  desire  for  free 
soup  or  city  work  and  wages  —  to  have  an  equal  share  in  the 
management  of  enormous  financial  interests  with  those  who 
furnish  the  money  and  who  alone  are  likely  to  desire  its  eco- 
nomical administration.  Tweed's  revelations  should  at  least 
open  the  eyes  of  all  loose  talkers  about  natural  rights  and 
human  brotherhood  to  the  only  possible  practical  effect  of  their 
a  priori  theories  in  a  great  commercial  city.  Power  without 
correlative  responsibility  is  a  curse  to  those  who  exercise  it  and 
a  constant  injustice  to  those  who  suffer  from  it.  To  confer  the 
privilege  of  disbursing  money,  or  of  choosing  those  who  are 
to  disburse  it,  upon  one  who  has  had  nothing  to  do  with  its 
acquisition,  has  paid  no  share  of  it,  and  has  every  possible 
inducement  to  squander  it,  will  soon,  we  believe,  be  looked 
upon  in  municipal  affairs  as  the  method  of  madmen,  and 
any  attempt  to  defend  it  as  too  irrational  to  call  for  serious 
discussion. 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    75 

Mr.  Godkin's  article  of  the  year  1877  may  be  fitly 
supplemented  by  one  written  in  1894  (November  15) 
on  the  "Future  of  Tammany": 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  talk  just  now  of  reorganizing  Tam- 
many, and  it  has  a  good  deal  of  interest  for  all  classes  of  citi- 
zens, for  even  if  Tammany  should  disappear,  the  possibility  of 
Tammany  will  always  remain  unless  there  should  be  a  com- 
plete disappearance  of  political  partisanship  among  its  oppo- 
nents. It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  Tammany  on  November 
6  polled  108,000  votes,  in  spite  of  all  the  exposures  of  the  last 
six  months.  These  108,000  are  a  very  formidable  factor  in 
city  affairs.  They  show  that  there  is  among  us  a  very  large 
body  of  persons  who  do  not  care  particularly  for  good  govern- 
ment, who  do  not  object  to  government  by  corruption  or  in- 
trigue, to  whom  ignorance  and  vice  are  not  blemishes  in  public 
officials,  and  on  whom  discussion  and  exposure  do  not  make 
any  impression.  We  must  remember  that  Tweed  was  reelected 
in  his  district  after  all  his  frauds  and  thefts  had  been  laid  be- 
fore the  public.  The  Tammany  voters  are  now  controlled,  and 
always  have  been  controlled,  by  Tammany,  by  means  of  the 
police  and  police  justices  and  by  the  offices.  Through  the  offices 
Tammany  secures  competent  "district  leaders";  through  the 
police  and  police  justices,  it  keeps  the  rank  and  file  in  order, 
partly  by  threats,  partly  by  persecution,  and  partly  by  inter- 
cession at  the  police  courts  and  civil  justices'  courts.  A  district 
leader  often  spends  his  whole  mornings  at  the  police  courts, 
furnishing  "pulls"  and  bail  for  drunkards  and  other  disorderly 
and  criminal  persons. 

This  body  is  not  likely  to  diminish  in  this  city.  It  is  fed  by 
immigration,  by  the  drift  of  adventurers  and  broken-down 
men  from  the  country,  and  by  what  theologians  call  the  "nat- 
ural depravity"  of  the  human  species.  It  will  stand  ready  to 
jump  into  power  again  every  year  of  the  next  fifty.    It  likes 


76    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

power  and  the  good  things  which  power  gives,  and  it  has  no 
scruples  about  modes  of  getting  power.  It  will  therefore  fur- 
nish a  constant  temptation  to  the  class  of  politicians  who  rule 
Tammany  to  try  their  old  games  over  again.  It  is  what  we 
might  call  the  raw  material  of  their  trade.  In  three  years  after 
the  fall  of  Tweed,  which  blew  the  wigwam  to  atoms,  the  Tam- 
many society  was  reorganized  and  ready  for  action,  and  had 
induced  large  numbers  of  people  to  believe  that  it  was  going  to 
be  decent  this  time,  etc.,  etc. 

Now  this  very  thing  will  happen  over  again,  and  sooner  than 
most  people  now  imagine,  unless  there  is  a  complete  change  of 
heart  among  partisans  on  both  sides  about  city  affairs.  The 
Committee  of  Seventy  has  shown  what  can  be  done  by  union 
against  the  common  enemy,  but  so  did  the  Committee  of  Sev- 
enty of  1871.  Nevertheless,  the  practice  of  running  party  can- 
didates for  the  mayoralty  on  federal  issues  began  again  as 
early  as  1880,  and  was  continued  steadily  until  1890,  Tam- 
many gaining  ground  all  the  time,  until  in  1888  a  Tammany 
liquor-dealer  and  "sport"  was  actually  welcomed  as  a  deliv- 
erer of  the  city.  The  Democrats  said,  "This  is  a  Democratic 
city:  why  should  we  not  have  the  mayoralty?"  The  Republi- 
cans said,  "We  have  100,000  votes:  why  should  we  always  be 
the  ones  to  yield?"  Whenever  there  was  any  sign  or  prospect 
of  a  secession  of  decent  Democrats  from  Tammany,  the  Repub- 
lican machine  always  marshalled  its  forces  to  rush  in  at  the 
breach.  At  last  the  city  was  treated  to  six  solid  years  of  Tam- 
many, and  we  know  with  what  result. 

We  cannot  help  hoping  that  we  have  reached  the  end  of  these 
mistakes  and  delusions.  The  Committee  of  Seventy  have 
shown,  more  conspicuously  than  ever  before,  the  power  which, 
even  in  this  city  of  many  nationalities  and  creeds,  lies  in  the 
union  of  good  people.  We  believe  the  Good  Government  clubs 
are  doing  invaluable  work  in  turning  the  lesson  to  account. 
They  are  spreading  the  non-partisan  (not  bi-partisan)  view  of 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    77 

city  affairs.  It  is  especially  important  that  they  should  ham- 
mer it  into  the  brains  of  the  young,  for  the  men  who  have  con- 
ducted this  campaign  against  Tammany  will  be  gone  from  the 
state  in  twenty  years,  as  the  men  of  1871  are  now,  and  in  about 
twenty  years  Tammany  regains  its  old  strength.  Tammany 
will  surely  come  again,  unless  young  and  old  get  into  the  way 
of  looking  at  the  city  as  they  look  at  their  bank,  and  think  no 
more  about  the  mayor's  politics  than  they  think  about  the 
politics  of  the  cashier  who  keeps  their  accounts.  All  the  well- 
governed  cities  of  the  world  are  governed  on  this  business  plan, 
all  the  badly  governed,  on  the  other. 

The  plan  of  going  down  among  the  rank  and  file  of  Tam- 
many with  books  and  pamphlets,  and  University  Settlements, 
and  popular  lectures,  we  know  has  merit.  It  is  a  work  of  human- 
ity and  civilization  which  is  always  in  order.  But  they  deceive 
themselves  who  think  the  city  can  be  saved  by  any  such  mis- 
sionary work.  What  Tammany  offers  to  the  ignorant  and  poor 
is  always  something  more  palpable  and  succulent  than  enlight- 
enment, or  free  reading-rooms,  or  cheap  coffee.  It  can  never 
be  met  and  vanquished  except  by  union  among  the  honest, 
industrious,  and  intelligent.  These  are  now  in  a  majority  and 
have  always  been  in  a  majority.  A  great  commercial  city  like 
New  York  could  not  exist  and  prosper  if  they  were  not  in  a 
majority.  Whenever  they  cease  to  be  in  a  majority,  capital 
and  labor  will  both  begin  to  move  away  from  Manhattan 
Island. 

If  Mr.  Godkin  had  in  the  admiration  of  a  wide  circle 
and  in  external  honors  rich  compensation  for  labor  per- 
formed with  so  much  zest,  Mr.  Garrison  toiled  on  for 
forty-one  years  in  self-imposed  seclusion,  and  appreci- 
ated only  by  the  initiated  few.  One  great  tribute,  almost 
painful  to  one  so  modest,  came  to  him  on  the  completion 
of  forty  years'  service  on  the  Nation,  when,  on  July  6, 


78    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

1905,  more  than  two  hundred  of  the  Nation1' s  contribu- 
tors presented  him  with  a  silver  vase,  inscribed  by  Pro- 
fessor Goldwin  Smith  as  a  recognition  of  "forty  years 
of  able,  upright,  and  truly  patriotic  work  in  the  editor- 
ship of  the  Nation." 

The  end  came  to  him  on  February  27,  1907,  at  South 
Orange,  New  Jersey.  He  had  been  a  patient  sufferer  from 
a  cruel  malady  for  some  months. 

Self-effacement  [said  the  Nation  in  its  obituary  tribute  to 
Mr.  Garrison]  was  so  the  law  of  Mr.  Garrison's  being  that,  even 
now  when  his  lips  can  no  longer  frame  a  protest,  one  hesitates 
to  essay  his  praise.  It  was  his  life-long  joy  to  sink  himself  in 
his  work.  For  forty-one  years  editor  of  the  Nation,  he  seldom 
put  his  name  to  anything  he  wrote  in  its  columns. 

Between  Mr.  Garrison  and  the  large  corps  of  Nation  re- 
viewers and  writers  which  he  built  up  there  existed  a  peculiar, 
almost  a  family,  feeling.  He  watched  over  them  with  an  in- 
terest and  pride  well-nigh  of  kinship.  The  relation  was,  to 
him,  less  editorial  than  fraternal.  There  must  be  thousands  of 
his  letters,  written  out  in  that  beautiful  hand  of  his,  and  with 
his  marvellous  felicity  and  justness  of  expression,  still  in  the 
possession  of  his  contributors  as  a  witness  to  his  high  concep- 
tion of  the  tie  that  bound  him  to  them.  No  one  could  surpass 
him  in  discriminating  encouragement.  Even  in  his  later  years 
he  kept  a  young  heart  and  a  keen  eye  for  rising  writers.  He 
thought  of  his  band  of  workers  as  one  continually  to  be  re- 
newed by  the  influx  of  youth ;  and  if  youth  brought,  at  first, 
immaturity  and  awkwardness,  none  so  patient  and  tactful  as 
Mr.  Garrison  in  bearing  with  it  and  correcting  it.  Critical  sev- 
erity he  could  convey  with  the  most  exquisite  delicacy  — 
wreathing  it  in  the  garlands  of  friendship. 

To  be,  rather  than  to  produce,  was  always  the  first  motive 
with  Mr.  Garrison.   To  him  life  was  more  than  books.   And 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    79 

how  high  he  pitched  his  life,  every  man  who  was  ever  long  in 
touch  with  his  grave  courtesy,  his  unfailing  kindness,  his  un- 
bending integrity,  and  his  lofty  ideals,  would  enthusiastically 
testify.  To  be  in  contact  with  him  even  in  a  newspaper  office 
was  to  have  one's  admiration  for  him  kindled  and  continually 
heightened;  while  those  admitted  to  the  intimacies  of  his  friend- 
ship cannot  find  words  to  do  justice  to  his  faithfulness  and  self- 
sacrificing  ardor  in  bestowing  a  favor  or  anticipating  a  need. 

Mr.  Garrison  impressed  all  who  knew  him  as  a  man  of  the 
well-fibred  virtues  of  an  elder  day.  He  nourished  himself  on 
inward  and  hidden  strength.  One  felt  that  his  soul  dwelt  apart, 
yet  one  saw  him  cheerfully  laying  the  lowliest  duties  upon  him- 
self. In  the  total  combination  of  nearly  ascetic  sternness  with 
himself  and  infinite  consideration  for  others,  we  shall  not  soon 
look  upon  his  like  again. 

In  closing  this  cursory  review  of  what  the  Nation  and 
its  first  editors  have  stood  for,  something  remains  to  be 
said  of  the  attitude  of  those  into  whose  hands  the  Nation 
of  to-day  is  committed  towards  their  great  masters.  Let 
this  be  done  in  the  language  of  an  editorial,  written  by 
Mr.  Rollo  Ogden,  in  the  number  which  closed  the  fifty 
years  of  the  paper's  existence: 

Those  to-day  responsible  for  the  conduct  of  the  Nation  look 
back  to  its  fifty  years  of  life  with  a  kind  of  proud  humility.  The 
secure  past  is  not  theirs,  yet  they,  as  inheritors  of  a  high  tradi- 
tion, must  not  discredit  it.  As  they  think  of  the  men  who  con- 
ceived the  Nation  and  nourished  its  early  years  —  both  editors 
and  contributors  during  the  time  when  its  fame  was  solidly 
built  up  —  the  sensation  is  like  that  of  one  walking  through  a 
gallery  of  the  portraits  of  his  famous  ancestors.  They  are  his, 
yet  not  his  —  his,  if  he  lives  worthy  of  the  name  they  be- 
queathed to  him;  not  his,  if  he  fastens  disgrace  where  they 
stamped  only  honor. 


80    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

Of  Nation  personalities  in  the  earlier  day,  we  must  leave 
others  to  speak.  They  have  done  it  in  this  issue  richly  and  with 
grace  and  justice.  Over  the  still  recent  and  still  mourned  loss 
of  Mr.  Hammond  Lamont,  we  could  not  pass  in  complete  si- 
lence. His  was  a  very  tragedy  of  premature  death. 

"  Early  didst  thou  leave  the  world,  with  powers 
Fresh,  undiverted  to  the  world  without, 
Firm  to  their  mark,  not  spent  on  other  things, 
Free  from  the  sick  fatigue,  the  languid  doubt." 

Tributes  to  Mr.  Godkin  and  Mr.  Garrison  finer  than  those 
paid  elsewhere,  no  friend  and  admirer  of  theirs  could  desire. 
There  is  perhaps  room  for  a  word  on  the  felicitous  way  in  which 
the  two  supplemented  each  other  in  their  joint  work.  Mr.  God- 
kin's  was  the  greater  elemental  force.  He  had  an  impetuous 
rush.  But  sometimes  the  mighty  flood  of  his  argument,  sur- 
charged with  humor,  was  in  danger  of  overflowing  its  banks. 
He  occasionally  needed  a  dike-builder.  It  was  a  piece  of  rare 
good  fortune  for  him  that  he  had  at  his  elbow  a  man  of  the  cool- 
est judgment,  of  accurate  scholarship,  willing  and  pleased  to 
wreak  himself  upon  the  perfecting  of  the  smallest  detail.  In 
Mr.  Garrison's  hands,  verification  was  as  a  religion.  Even 
punctuation  became  to  his  pen  a  fine  art.  His  patient  labor 
behind  the  curtain  was  not  of  a  kind  that  the  high  gods  of  lit- 
erature delight  in,  yet  it  was  indispensable  to  the  rounding  out 
of  the  Nation.  No  one  was  quicker  to  perceive  this  than  Mr. 
Godkin.  He  once  wrote  to  Mr.  Garrison,  after  years  of  asso- 
ciated endeavor:  "If  anything  happens  to  you,  I  shall  retire 
into  a  monastery." 

No  one  has  ever  written  comprehensively  of  the  place  of  the 
Nation  in  the  intellectual  life  of  the  United  States,  or,  more 
particularly,  of  its  true  position  in  the  history  of  American 
journalism.  The  hints,  the  echoes,  the  scattered  individual 
testimonies,  the  treasured  memories,  abound.    Wc  have  the 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    81 

letters  of  Lowell  and  Norton.  We  have  the  men  of  sixty  whose 
hearts  still  burn  within  them  as  they  recall  what  the  Nation 
was  to  them  in  the  years  when  their  minds  were  expanding  to 
the  light.  In  the  colleges  it  was  a  power  with  the  choicer  na- 
tures ;  on  more  than  one  farm  it  was  a  college  to  awakening 
intelligences  denied  a  college  education.  Not  long  ago,  a  man 
who  had  spent  forty-five  years  in  the  service  of  a  railway,  ris- 
ing from  train-hand  to  conductor  of  a  trunk-line  express,  spoke 
simply  of  the  Nation,  which  he  had  read  for  all  that  time,  as 
"the  only  university  I  have  been  able  to  attend."  No  doubt, 
the  new  weekly  of  1865  fell  happily  upon  the  period.  America 
was  still  very  provincial-minded,  more  than  a  trifle  crude, 
afflicted  with  Chauvinism.  Yet  there  were  stirrings  of  a 
new  life,  gropings  after  more  severe  standards,  an  increas- 
ing perception  that  American  achievement  must  submit 
to  the  test  of  the  best  that  had  been  done  or  written.  Then 
along  came  the  Nation  to  express  trained  and  cosmopolitan 
judgment  of  books  and  men  and  movements.  To  many  a 
youth  —  and  his  elders,  too  —  it  was  like  the  opening  of  a 
new  world. 

The  Nation's  influence  in  shaping  the  American  press  was 
out  of  all  proportion  to  the  mere  number  of  its  readers.  It  did 
not  strive  nor  cry.  The  effects  it  wrought  were  subtle  and  in- 
sinuated, never  clamorous.  A  virtue  went  out  from  it  which  was 
unconsciously  absorbed  by  many  newspaper  writers.  They 
could  scarcely  have  said  where  they  got  their  new  impulse  to 
exercise  a  judgment  independent  of  party.  All  can  raise  the 
flowers  now,  for  all  have  got  the  seed.  To-day  the  most  power- 
ful newspapers  in  the  United  States  are  those  which  have  the 
reputation  of  being  always  ready,  on  a  question  of  real  prin- 
ciple, to  snap  the  green  withes  with  which  politicians  would 
bind  them.  But  until  twenty  years  after  the  Nation  was 
founded,  how  few  they  were,  how  sneered  at,  how  disliked! 
The  steady  light  which  Mr.  Godkin  burned  in  the  Nation,  and 


82    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

later  in  the  Evening  Post,  had  its  slow  but  cumulative  radia- 
tions. Not  merely  did  it  become  impossible  to  employ,  with  a 
grave  face,  the  partisan  shibboleths  which  he  was  continually 
holding  up  to  ridicule,  but  it  was  made  easier  for  editors  to  re- 
fuse to  give  up  to  party  what  was  meant  for  country.  In  this 
way,  the  Nation  was  as  leaven  in  the  lump  of  American  jour- 
nalism. Its  primary  appeal  was  to  "the  remnant."  Yet  those 
whom  it  taught  and  inspired  were  all  the  time  going  out  to 
teach  and  inspire  others.  Thus  the  result  was  like  a  geometri- 
cal progression.  The  Nation  reaped  where  apparently  it  had 
never  sowed.  And  in  the  whole  matter  of  unbiassed  and  in- 
formed comment  upon  great  affairs,  it  gradually  became  a  sort 
of  external  conscience  to  other  publications.  They  waited  to 
see  what  it  would  say  before  finally  committing  themselves. 
Coming  down  to  a  later  period,  that  of  Mr.  Godkin's  larger 
identification  with  the  Evening  Post,  we  have  the  remark  of  a 
veteran  Western  journalist,  in  reply  to  some  one  who  was 
lamenting  the  fact  that  such  a  paper  had  not  a  larger  circula- 
tion. "You  idiot,  "he  exclaimed,  with  profane  emphasis,  "don't 
you  know  that  there  is  n't  a  decent  editor  in  the  United  States 
who  does  not  want  to  find  out  what  it  has  to  say  on  any  subject 
worth  writing  about,  before  getting  himself  on  record  in  cold 
type?" 

We  would  not  end  on  a  purely  commemorative  note.  The 
past  of  the  Nation  ought  to  be  a  pledge  for  the  present  and  a 
guarantee  of  its  future.  Walter  Bagehot  chose  a  newspaper  as 
a  good  illustration  of  the  doctrine  of  persistence  of  type;  and 
no  one  connected  with  the  Nation  could  escape,  if  he  would, 
what  the  years  have  wrought  into  it.  If  it  has  seen  many  of  the 
causes  advocated  by  it  come  to  triumph,  there  are  others  still 
to  be  struggled  for.  If  it  drew  to  itself  rare  spirits  in  a  day  that 
is  dead,  it  will  continue  to  invite  the  best  thought  and  to  seek 
to  secure  and  express  the  soundest  verdicts  on  literature,  sci- 
ence, politics,  life.  This  number  of  the  Nation  is  largely  given 


NATION  EDITORS  AND  CONTRIBUTORS    83 

up  to  memory,  but  hope  is  interfused.  Coming  days  are  to  be 
fronted  bravely.  An  institution  like  the  Nation  is  self-renew- 
ing. The  spirit  of  youth  is  forever  interpenetrating  it.  So  that 
there  is  the  more  reason  for  confidence  as  it  grows  old, 
since,  with  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,  it  may  hope  that  the  best  is  yet 
to  be. 


II 
THE  NATION'S  VIEWS 
FROM  YEAR  TO  YEAR 


THE  NATION'S  VIEWS  FROM  YEAR 
TO   YEAR 

1865 

The  appearance  of  the  Nation  coincided  with  the  open- 
ing of  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  our  country.  The  early 
numbers  of  the  paper  bore  testimony  to  the  stress  of  the 
process  of  transformation  which  a  society  that  had  just 
emerged  from  a  cruel  civil  war  was  undergoing.  The 
editorial  columns  had  to  deal  with  grave  public  questions. 
Three  States  —  Delaware,  Kentucky  and  Maryland  — 
had  refused  to  ratify  the  amendment  abolishing  slavery; 
the  rights  of  the  National  Government  to  proceed  against 
the  Confederate  leaders  for  treason,  and  the  duty  to  hold 
the  vanquished  States  under  provisional  rule  were  vehe- 
mently discussed  throughout  the  country;  the  growth  of 
the  public  debt  called  urgently  for  wise  financial  legisla- 
tion ;  the  policy  of  giving  the  vote  to  the  colored  people 
of  the  South,  and  the  problem  of  doing  justice  to  their 
former  masters,  now  impoverished,  agitated  all  minds. 
Moral,  economic  and  educational  problems  were  in  the 
air.  Political  conventions  were  everywhere  in  session,  and 
the  most  diverse  views  were  held  as  to  the  reconstruction 
policy  of  President  Johnson.  The  Alabama  controversy 
was  looming  up  portentously;  commissions  were  busy 
with  the  reshaping  of  the  tax  and  tariff  systems  of  the 
country,  and  the  Eight-Hour  Movement  in  the  interest 
of  the  laboring  classes  was  coming  to  the  front.  Such 
were  some  of  the  burning  questions  of  the  day.  But  signs 
of  a  brighter  future  were  in  the  sky,  and  reasons  for  grate- 
fulness for  what  had  been  accomplished  in  many  direc- 
tions were  abundant. 


88    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

The  Dawn  of  Brighter  Days 

Swift  as  was  the  collapse  of  armed  rebellion  [said  the  Nation, 
in  its  issue  of  July  20,  1865,]  it  has  been  attended  with  no 
appreciable  shock  to  the  country.  War  had  come  to  be  our 
normal  condition,  yet  we  relapse  without  disturbance  into  the 
ways  of  peace  again.  One  by  one  the  evidences  of  change  ac- 
cumulate: to-day  the  return  of  regiments  to  be  mustered  out; 
to-morrow  a  sale  of  war- vessels  and  transports;  the  unsealing 
of  the  ports  followed  by  the  removal  of  all  restraints  on  inter- 
state traffic.  To  these  is  now  added  the  farewell  address  of  the 
managers  of  the  Sanitary  Commission  to  its  agents  throughout 
the  land.  With  the  fourth  of  this  month  the  work  of  making 
and  procuring  supplies  was  officially  directed  to  be  brought  to 
a  close,  and  all  that  remains  for  the  Commission  is  to  attend  to 
the  distribution  of  stores  on  hand,  to  collect  the  pensions  and 
back  pay  of  the  soldiers  through  its  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
seven  offices,  to  account  for  its  stewardship  to  the  public,  and 
make  up  its  scientific  record,  for  the  advantage  of  every  na- 
tion that  is  so  luckless  as  to  be  involved  in  war.  These  duties, 
though  assuredly  not  trifling,  do  not  require  that  vast  combin- 
ation of  charitable  workers  which  has  hitherto  existed  at  the 
North,  and  to  the  members  of  which,  especially,  the  Commis- 
sion proffers  its  admiration  and  gratitude.  It  is  indeed  marvel- 
ous that  a  scheme  of  benevolence  so  extensive  and  so  efficient 
as  we  know  the  Commission  to  have  been,  should  have  been 
sustained  without  ostentation,  without  bustle,  and  with  so 
much  certainty  that,  as  the  address  says,  "volunteer  work  has 
had  all  the  regularity  of  paid  labor,"  by  the  women  of  the 
loyal  States.  The  phenomenon  is  without  example  in  the  his- 
tory of  this  or  any  country,  and  deserves  something  more  than 
applause  and  compliments.  Honor  as  we  may  the  tender  sym- 
pathy, the  devotion,  the  self-sacrifice,  the  faith  that  faltered 
not,  the  patient  endurance  of  the  wives  and  mothers  and  sis- 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS     89 

ters  whose  toils  are  now  ended,  their  harmonious  cooperation 
and  business-like  punctuality  —  their  division  of  labor  and 
calculation  of  means,  excite  surprise  in  almost  an  equal  degree. 
In  thus  displaying  qualities  which  are  commonly  appropriated 
to  the  other  sex,  they  suggest  the  permanent  enlargement  of 
their  field  of  usefulness,  since  what  they  have  accomplished  in 
an  extraordinary  emergency,  without  previous  training,  is  an 
earnest  of  their  achievements  when  they  shall  have  been  regu- 
larly bred  to  habits  of  industry  and  self-support. 

Changes  in  Population 

Two  great  changes  resulting  from  the  war  engaged  the 
attention  of  thoughtful  observers  —  the  enormous  tide 
of  emigration  rolling  westward  and  the  opening  of  new 
channels  of  trade  and  industry  in  the  East.  A  significant 
allusion  to  these  movements  occurs  in  the  Nation  of 
July  20: 

Fort  Laramie  is  situated  at  the  junction  of  the  Nebraska  and 
Laramie  Rivers,  in  almost  the  exact  latitude  of  Boston,  but 
about  thirty-five  degrees  nearer  to  the  Pacific.  Some  estimate 
of  Western  emigration  may  be  formed  from  the  passage  of 
trains  through  this  point  in  the  last  two  months.  In  May,  over 
5000  teams  and  40,000  head  of  stock.  In  June,  about  4000 
emigrants  and  30,000  head  of  stock.  This  monstrous  tide  is 
pouring  over  the  Rocky  Mountains,  while  the  plains  they  have 
traversed  are  lined  with  the  trains  of  their  immediate  succes- 
sors. 

There  was  as  yet  little  inclination  on  the  part  of  North- 
ern emigrants  to  renew  the  wasted  soil  of  the  South,  to 
clear  its  forests  and  drain  its  swamps,  to  impress  the 
water-power  into  their  service  and  to  set  up  the  cotton- 
niiil  alongside  of  the  cotton-field;  to  build  highways  and 


90    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

to  explore  mines.  Still,  the  emigration  to  Maryland  was 
described  as  very  large,  though  the  lower  counties,  which 
had  been  the  home  of  slave  labor,  were  less  favored  by 
the  newcomers  than  the  others. 

New  England  had  but  a  few  years  previously  possessed 
a  large  population  engaged  in  general  farming.  Said  the 
Nation,  in  its  issue  of  August  17: 

The  families  of  the  farmers  furnished  operatives  for  the  fac- 
tories, the  daughters  constituting  the  larger  proportion  of  the 
weavers  in  both  the  cotton  and  the  woollen  mills.  But  for  many 
years  it  has  become  evident  that  New  England  must  yield  to 
the  West  in  the  cultivation  of  all  the  great  staples  of  food,  re- 
serving only  the  raising  of  stock,  of  wool,  and  of  the  hay  crop, 
occupations  requiring  but  few  hands.  The  farming  population 
decreases  in  number,  and  this  decrease  will  be  vastly  stimu- 
lated by  the  knowledge  of  other  sections  of  the  country  gained 
by  the  New  England  soldiers.  At  the  same  time,  the  demand 
for  skilled  labor  in  printing-offices,  in  book-binding,  and  in  the 
immense  amount  of  work  done  by  the  sewing-machine,  has 
gradually  withdrawn  American  girls  from  the  factories  to  these 
better  paid  and  more  independent  branches.  This  change  has 
been  greatly  stimulated  by  the  war  demand  for  clothing  and 
material,  and  it  seems  probable  that  such  has  been  the  increase 
of  population,  and  the  consequent  increase  of  demand  upon 
those  whose  business  it  is  to  put  the  textile  and  other  fabrics 
into  a  form  for  use,  that  even  in  times  of  peace  all  the  females 
who  have  been  thus  employed  will  continue  to  be. 

The  Nation  saw  one  of  the  regrettable  results  of  the 
war  in  the  tendency  of  New  England  to  a  sparse  popula- 
tion in  the  country,  engaged  in  special  branches  and  not 
in  general  farming,  and  to  a  dense  population  in  the  cities 
and  towns,  largely  foreign,  employed  in  extremely  sub- 
divided labor,  and  needing  wise  and  vigorous  legislation 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS     91 

to  prevent  ignorance  and  vice  from  increasing  rapidly. 
But  while  there  were  dangers  in  all  this,  New  England 
had  the  certainty  of  maintaining  her  supremacy  in  manu- 
facturing, the  cotton  or  woollen  mill  of  Lawrence  being  des- 
tined to  undersell  the  isolated  mill  in  the  South  or  West. 

Thus  [the  Nation  argued],  while  a  radical  and  somewhat 
dangerous  tendency  affects  New  England,  a  change  as  great 
and  much  more  desirable  must  affect  the  Middle  and  Western 
States.  The  Eastern  soldier,  brought  up  in  boyhood  upon  a 
farm,  then  developed  in  the  mill  or  the  workshop  into  the  skil- 
ful artizan,  has  by  his  own  observation  of  the  South,  and  by  his 
intimate  companionship  with  the  Western  soldier,  learned  of 
the  great  opening  which  exists  for  him,  and  he  will  carry  to 
Virginia,  to  Maryland,  Tennessee,  and  Kentucky  the  better 
method  of  farming  pursued  in  Vermont,  New  York,  and  Penn- 
sylvania. He  will  carry  to  the  West  the  skill  of  the  artizan,  to 
be  applied  not  to  the  establishment  of  great  factories,  but  to 
the  thousand  smaller  branches  which  are  carried  on  in  the 
workshop  and  at  the  forge  or  lathe.  He  will  establish  by  nat- 
ural methods  that  diversity  of  employment  in  the  West  which 
is  sure  to  follow  individual  enterprise  and  skill,  and  which  is 
far  better  than  the  forced  growth  induced  by  protective  legis- 
lation. And  at  the  South,  who  can  foresee  the  changes?  The 
Eastern  and  the  Western  man,  alike  attracted  by  the  immense 
profits  sure  to  follow  the  application  of  improved  methods  of 
agriculture,  must  buy  out  the  planter,  and  give  employment 
to  the  freedmen,  and  to  the  foreign  emigrants  who  will  soon 
be  attracted  there.  He  will  save  the  waste,  like  that  of  cotton 
seed,  which  in  the  hands  of  a  Yankee  would  yield  value  almost 
equal  to  the  fibre.  And  as  the  population  thus  changes,  and 
new  wants  are  developed,  the  artizan  must  follow,  the  village 
must  begin  to  have  an  existence,  the  city  must  become  one  in 
fact  as  well  as  in  name. 


92    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

1866 
A  Counsel  of  Moderation 

With  all  its  pronounced  views  on  the  Southern  ques- 
tion, the  Nation  never  failed  to  point  out  the  importance 
not  only  of  dealing  justly  with  the  vanquished  States, 
but  of  making  allowance  for  ebullitions  of  Southern  tem- 
per and  the  recrudescence  of  old  prejudices.  An  instance 
in  point  is  worth  recalling. 

Mr.  Pollard,  the  editor  of  the  Richmond  Examiner, 
had  secured  from  the  President  permission  to  resume 
publication,  on  promise  of  good  behavior.  General 
Grant,  however,  issued  an  order  directing  the  various 
commanding  officers  to  keep  their  eyes  on  the  Southern 
press,  with  the  view  of  punishing  such  newspapers  as 
were  guilty  of  continued  attempts  to  excite  hatred  of  the 
Government  and  sow  ill-will  between  North  and  South. 

This  [said  the  Nation  of  February  22]  may,  at  the  present 
juncture,  seem  a  necessary  precaution,  but  we  doubt  very 
much  whether  the  muzzling  of  the  press  will  do  much  towards 
putting  the  South  in  a  good  humor.  The  theory  of  despotic 
government  is  that,  by  carefully  preventing  all  public  expres- 
sion of  disloyal  feeling,  the  feeling  itself  will  be  at  last  extin- 
guished, but  the  plan  has  never  succeeded,  though  it  has  been 
tried  in  a  dozen  countries  ever  since  the  invention  of  printing. 
Nor  will  it  succeed  in  the  South.  The  only  antidote  that  we 
know  of  for  the  raving  of  Southern  zealots,  is  the  maintenance 
of  free  speech  by  the  strong  hand  in  every  part  of  the  country. 
Let  Southern  editors  say  what  they  please,  but  give  those  who 
differ  with  them  a  chance  of  making  themselves  heard,  also, 
with  safety,  if  not  with  comfort.  Mr.  Pollard  writes  as  he  does, 
and  his  readers  feel  as  they  do,  solely  because  for  years  before 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS     93 

the  rebellion  no  man  dared  to  gainsay  any  of  the  teachings  by 
which  the  country  was  at  last  plunged  into  civil  war.  Can  the 
Reconstruction  Committee  and  Congress  not  see  that  this 
must  be  the  basis  of  all  plans  for  the  social  or  political  regen- 
eration of  the  South? 

It  is  difficult  to  realize,  at  this  distance  of  time,  how 
great  was  the  service  rendered  by  the  Nation  in  counsel- 
ling moderation  while  the  air  was  thick  with  fierce  at- 
tacks on  the  President,  who,  in  a  notorious  speech,  had 
himself  set  the  example  of  unparalleled  recklessness.  In 
an  extraordinary  passage  of  his  address  at  Washington 
in  February,  1866,  Andrew  Johnson  had  brought  the 
charge  against  members  of  Congress  of  seeking  his  assas- 
sination, and  when  the  press  and  the  public  repudiated 
the  accusation  with  equal  fierceness  of  speech,  the  Nation 
said   (March  1) : 

Keenly  as  we  feel  the  terrible  mistake  of  the  President,  we 
would  not  have  it  forgotten  that  Andrew  Johnson  has  in  times 
past  been  tried  and  not  found  wanting  in  patriotism,  in  de- 
votion to  the  Union,  in  faithfulness  to  his  obligations.  He 
stands  now  with  a  heavier  responsibility  than  ever  resting  upon 
him.  He  cannot  be  removed  for  evidence  of  a  ferocious  tem- 
per or  for  bad  manners,  so  long  as  his  misconduct  does  not 
take  the  form  of  unconstitutional  obstruction  to  the  machin- 
ery of  our  Government.  He  will  be  President  for  three  years 
to  come,  and  must  be  the  instrument  through  which  alone  we 
can  exercise  any  legal  influence  on  Southern  society.  No 
member  of  Congress,  no  leader  of  the  people,  can  be  equal  to 
the  occasion  who  now  betrays  more  anxiety  about  his  record 
or  the  record  of  his  party  than  about  the  means,  as  things  now 
stand,  and  as  men  are,  of  securing  not  only  the  reestablish- 
ment  of  the  Union  but  the  restoration  of  the  reign  of  law  to  all 
parts  of  the  country. 


94    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

The  Austro-Prussian  War  and  Rights  of  Private  Property 

The  overshadowing  event  of  the  year  was  the  Austro- 
Prussian  war.  A  comment  of  the  Nation,  in  its  issue  of 
June  22,  on  the  general  question  of  the  rights  of  private 
property  at  sea,  is  not  without  interest  at  the  present 
time: 

The  Emperor  of  Austria  and  the  King  of  Prussia  have  both 
signified  their  intention  of  respecting  private  property  at  sea 
in  the  coming  war.  As  neither  of  them  possesses  navy  enough 
to  do  anybody  much  harm,  the  sacrifice  is  not  as  great  as  it 
seems,  but  it  is,  nevertheless,  unquestionably  an  indication, 
and  a  valuable  one,  of  the  advance  of  civilization.  There  is 
nothing,  even  in  the  absurdity  of  war,  more  absurd  than  the 
practice  of  destroying  the  ships  of  private  persons,  by  way  of 
bringing  the  government  to  terms.  It  has  never  had  any  such 
effect.  Ship-owners  are,  even  in  maritime  countries,  a  small 
class;  the  mass  of  the  community  are  very  little  affected  by 
their  troubles,  as  was  shown  in  our  own  war,  and  the  most  im- 
portant result  of  what  is  called  "the  destruction  of  an  enemy's 
commerce,"  is  the  transfer  of  the  carrying  trade  to  some  other 
power.  There  is  sometimes  a  touch  of  the  comic  lent  to  the 
matter  by  the  indignation  of  those  whose  property  is  all  on 
shore,  when  ship-owners  show  too  great  a  reluctance  to  have 
their  vessels  burned.  Congress  treated  those  amongst  Ameri- 
can ship-owners  who  made  transfers  of  their  ships  to  a  foreign 
flag,  to  escape  Semmes,  as  if  they  were  little  better  than 
traitors. 

The  Atlantic  Cable 

The  significance  of  the  laying  of  the  Atlantic  cable  in 
promoting  international  understanding  was  thus  spoken 
of  in  the  Nation  of  August  2: 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS     95 

The  cable  has  at  last  been  laid  and  is  working.  Some  emi- 
nent scientific  men  still  doubt  whether  it  will  work  well,  or 
work  long,  owing  to  the  inequality  of  pressure  at  the  various 
depths  at  which  it  lies,  the  abrasion  on  the  rocks,  and  other 
causes;  but  this  is  for  the  present  idle  and  profitless  specula- 
tion; time  only  can  test  it.  In  the  meantime  let  us  all  unite  in 
rejoicing  over  it,  as  one  of  the  greatest,  perhaps  the  greatest, 
triumph  of  human  ingenuity  —  one  whose  beneficent  results, 
both  moral  and  material,  are  still  only  foreshadowed,  but 
which  seem  likely  to  pass  all  present  imagining.  It  is  the  com- 
plement of  the  application  of  steam  to  navigation.  It  strikes 
the  last  grand  and,  we  hope,  fatal  blow,  not  at  national  dis- 
tinctions (for  we  hold  national  feeling  and  pride  to  be  as  neces- 
sary to  civilization  and  freedom  as  individual  self-respect  and 
independence),  but  at  international  hates  and  prejudices  —  at 
the  mediaeval  philosophy  which  makes  national  isolation  the 
highest  good,  and  the  Chinese  empire  a  model  polity.  There  is, 
perhaps,  nobody  connected  with  the  enterprise  who  deserves 
so  much  credit  as  Mr.  Cyrus  Field.  In  England  the  cable  was 
a  national  undertaking,  and  those  who  worked  at  it  were  sur- 
rounded by  sympathizers  and  supporters.  Mr.  Field  kept  his 
faith  and  his  energy  here  amidst  the  scoffing,  doubting,  or  in- 
different, and  we  are  glad  to  say  he  has  his  reward. 


1867 

The  First  Civil  Service  Reform  Bill 

The  reintroduction  of  the  Civil  Service  Reform  Bill,  by 
Mr.  Jenckes,  of  Rhode  Island,  which  he  had  submitted 
at  the  previous  session  of  Congress,  was  greeted  by  the 
Nation  with  warm  expressions  of  approval.  "Here  we 
have  a  bill,"  it  said  (January  10),  "that  meets  the  evil 
which  is  at  the  bottom  of  our  political  Pandora's  box." 


9Q    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

The  good  old-fashioned  faith  in  a  special  Providence  that 
cared  for  these  United  States  has  been  somewhat  rudely  shaken 
by  our  experiences  of  the  last  few  years.  The  enormous  taxa- 
tion imposed  in  consequence  of  the  rebellion  has  been  borne 
bravely  by  the  country;  but  the  manner  in  which  that  taxa- 
tion has  been  levied,  the  utter  incompetence  of  a  large  propor- 
tion of  the  army  of  tax-gatherers  in  the  revenue  service,  the 
destruction  of  some  branches  of  industry  by  the  mischances  of 
legislation,  the  apparent  hopelessness  (under  the  present  sys- 
tem) of  anything  like  a  decent  return  from  the  excise  duties, 
the  frequent  clashing  of  internal  and  tariff  duties  —  these  are 
the  sources  of  well-grounded  complaints.  Members  of  Con- 
gress, revenue  commissioners,  and  some  officers  of  the  Gov- 
ernment even,  have  confessed  the  faults  of  the  present  state  of 
affairs,  and  hope  to  do  better.  But  legislation  must  be  imper- 
fect so  long  as  it  gropes  in  the  dark,  and  light  can  be  had  only 
from  experience,  and  experience  is  the  one  thing  which  our 
officials  are  never  allowed  to  get.  How  many  generations  of 
men  have  sat  in  the  revenue  department  of  the  Government, 
and  how  many  of  the  changes  made  in  it  have  been  made  on 
any  other  than  purely  political,  partisan  grounds?  Suppose 
that  at  the  outset  of  the  new  system  of  taxation  officers  had 
been  appointed  to  administer  it  upon  merit,  as  tested  in  an 
examination;  that  those  officers  had  been  retained  up  to  this 
time;  and  that  promotions  among  them  had  been  made  on 
merit,  as  tested  by  their  services.  What  a  world  of  difference 
there  would  be  in  our  knowledge  of  the  right  and  the  wrong 
way  of  imposing  and  levying  taxes,  and  what  a  fund  of  advice 
there  would  be  to  guide  Congress  in  legislation,  the  courts  in 
interpretation,  and  the  Government  in  administration.  As  it 
is,  we  are  in  a  worse  sea  and  in  a  more  dangerous  and  shifting 
storm  of  uncertainties  than  we  were  at  the  outset  of  this  great 
experiment. 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS     97 

The  Meaning  of  American  Naturalization 

When  the  question  of  the  effect  of  American  naturali- 
zation upon  the  relations  of  American  citizens  born 
abroad  with  the  governments  under  which  they  were 
born,  was  discussed  by  the  Senate,  the  Nation  said  (De- 
cember 26) : 

It  is  well  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  doctrine  held  by  the  Eng- 
lish lawyers,  touching  the  impossibility  of  a  man's  getting  rid 
of  his  allegiance,  is  also  the  doctrine  held  by  the  American 
courts,  and  has  been  acknowledged  to  be  sound  doctrine  by 
American  diplomatists.  The  question  now  is  not  whether  the 
English  and  Prussians  are  wrong  in  their  views  of  the  law,  as 
some  of  the  Fenian  sages  seem  to  suppose,  but  whether  the  law 
had  better  be  changed.  There  is,  as  Mr.  Sumner  well  re- 
marked, an  absurdity,  now  when  men  are  emigrating  to  this 
country  by  the  million  with  the  sanction  and  encouragement  of 
their  governments,  in  maintaining  that  their  first  allegiance 
sticks  to  them  forever  and  cannot  be  repudiated.  This  theory 
did  very  well  when  emigrants  were  rare,  and  returned  emi- 
grants were  rarer  still,  but  it  will  not  do  in  this  age  of  steam, 
telegraphs,  railroads,  and  emigration  en  masse.  It  is  not  only 
unreasonable,  but  highly  inconvenient,  and  if  Congress  will 
put  an  end  to  it,  by  making  American  naturalization  absolute 
against  all  the  world,  it  will  do  civilization  some  service  as  well 
as  save  a  great  many  valuable  citizens  from  loss  or  annoyance. 


1868 
American  Diplomats  Abroad 


In  discussing  the  American  diplomatic  service  and  the 
need  of  well-qualified  representatives  abroad,  the  Nation 
said  (February  27): 


98    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

The  appointment  of  Mr.  Burlingame  as  Chinese  ambassador, 
and  the  remarkable  state  of  relations  between  this  country 
and  that  great  empire  which  we  now  witness,  are  due  also  to 
the  personal  qualities  of  the  minister  —  qualities,  we  may  add, 
of  which  Mr.  Burlingame's  previous  career  gave  little  indica- 
tion. We  do  not  think  anybody  at  home  is  to  be  complimented 
on  his  perspicacity  with  regard  to  the  appointment;  but  it  has 
turned  out  well,  and  proved  that  all  Mr.  Burlingame  needed 
to  distinguish  himself  was  an  opportunity.  He  has  won  from 
the  Chinese  Government  an  amount  of  confidence  in  himself 
such  as  it  has  never  before  accorded  to  a  foreigner  —  and  such, 
in  fact,  as  no  government  has  ever  accorded  to  a  foreigner  — 
and  has  won  with  it  its  deep  and  cordial  respect  for  his  own 
country;  and  he  has  won  it  without  giving  the  slightest  um- 
brage to  the  representatives  of  other  powers,  and  while  retain- 
ing in  the  highest  degree  their  confidence  in  his  loyalty,  integ- 
rity, and  judgment.  No  despatches,  no  display  of  military  or 
of  naval  power,  no  array  of  statistics,  could  have  accomplished 
such  a  result  as  this.  The  opening  of  China  to  the  outside 
world  after  thirty  centuries  of  seclusion  is  an  event  of  which 
the  importance,  no  matter  from  what  point  of  view  we  consider 
it,  can  hardly  be  overrated.  It  is  in  some  respects  equivalent 
to  the  discovery  of  a  new  continent;  and  that  the  empire  should, 
on  its  entry  into  the  family  of  civilized  nations,  adopt  the 
United  States  as  its  friend  and  protector,  is  perhaps  as  high  a 
compliment  as  any  country  has  ever  received.  But  whatever 
glory  we  have  won  by  it,  whatever  profit  we  may  gain  from  it, 
we  owe  to  individual  character,  to  the  moral  force  that  lies  in 
the  walk  and  conversation  of  a  single  public  servant.  The 
Chinese  know  nothing  of  Banks's  speeches  or  "reports"  or 
bills;  they  have  seen  no  American  fleets  or  armies;  our  hog  re- 
turns and  corn  returns  and  population  returns  make  little  or 
no  impression  on  them.  In  the  contest  of  magnitudes,  of  num- 
bers, and  of  bulk,  we  can  produce  nothing  with  which  their 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS     99 

eyes  or  imagination  is  not  familiar.  We  have  triumphed  mainly 
because  we  were  represented  by  an  able  and  honest  man. 

The  Result  of  the  Impeachment  Trial 

The  result  of  the  impeachment  trial  of  President  John- 
son was,  in  a  sense,  a  disappointment  to  the  Nation, 
chiefly  because  his  acquittal  tended  to  create  a  certain 
amount  of  popular  confidence  in  his  judgment.  But  the 
paper  hailed  as  a  rare  triumph  of  principle  the  behavior 
of  the  Republican  Senators  who  voted  for  Johnson's 
acquittal. 

We  believe,  for  our  part  [it  said,  May  21],  that  the  thanks  of 
the  country  are  due  to  Messrs.  Trumbull,  Fessenden,  Grimes, 
Henderson,  Fowler,  Van  Winkle,  and  Ross,  not  for  voting  for 
Johnson's  acquittal,  but  for  vindicating,  we  presume  nobody 
but  themselves  knows  at  what  cost,  the  dignity  and  purity  of 
the  court  of  which  they  formed  a  part,  and  the  sacred  rights  of 
individual  conscience.  They  have  afforded  American  young 
men  an  example  such  as  no  politicians  have  ever  afforded  them 
in  the  whole  course  of  American  history,  and  at  a  time,  too, 
when  the  tendency  to  put  party  claims  above  everything  is 
rapidly  increasing,  and  when  we  are  adding  to  our  voting  popu- 
lation a  vast  body  of  persons  on  whom  the  great  laws  of  mo- 
rality sit  only  very  lightly,  and  for  whom  party  discipline  has, 
of  course,  the  attraction  it  has  everywhere  and  always  for  those 
who  have  little  other  discipline  to  guide  them. 

The  issue  of  the  impeachment  trial  was  no  doubt  important 
as  regards  the  actual  political  situation ;  but  the  greatest  of  all 
questions  for  the  American  people  is,  whether  amongst  all  the 
troubles  and  changes  of  this  and  coming  ages  the  popular  re- 
spect for  the  forms  of  law,  for  judicial  purity  and  independence, 
can  be  maintained.  As  long  as  it  can,  all  will  go  well,  whatever 
storms  blow;  whenever  the  belief  becomes  general  that  a  court 


100    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

of  justice,  and  especially  a  "High  Court,"  can  be  fairly  used, 
whenever  the  majority  please,  as  the  instrument  of  their  will, 
it  will  make  little  difference  what  its  judgment  will  be  or  who 
fills  the  Presidential  chair. 


1869 

David  A.  Wells  and  his  Assailants 

Financial  questions  engrossed  the  attention  of  the 
public  mind  during  the  year.  The  report  of  the  Special 
Commissioner  of  the  Revenue,  Mr.  David  A.  Wells,  on 
the  condition  and  the  prospects  of  the  national  industry 
was  the  subject  of  bitter  attack  in  Congress  and  the 
press.  In  commenting  on  the  charges  that  "  British  gold  " 
had  influenced  his  judgment,  the  Nation  said  (April  8) : 

Mr.  Wells's  assailants  believe  that  high  tariffs  conduce  to 
the  prosperity  of  the  working  classes;  therefore  any  man  who 
says  that  in  a  particular  country  possessing  a  high  tariff  the 
working  classes  are  not  prosperous,  must  be  a  knave,  and  has 
probably  been  bribed  to  lie  by  persons  interested  in  the  im- 
portation of  foreign  goods. 

Another  remarkable  and  repulsive  feature  of  the  controversy 
has  been  the  theory,  on  which  most  of  Mr.  Wells's  opponents 
act  and  talk,  that  there  is  something  sacred  about  the  theory 
of  protection,  and  that  any  person  who  attacks  it,  or  even 
brings  to  light  facts  which  are  likely  to  weaken  its  hold  on  the 
popular  mind,  must  be  a  bad  man,  and  ought  to  have  his  influ- 
ence destroyed,  like  that  of  a  gambler  or  libertine,  not  simply 
by  argument  but  by  social  persecution,  or  any  other  weapons 
within  reach.  One  Pennsylvanian  sage,  or  saint,  was  so  shocked 
by  Mr.  Wells's  conclusions,  that  he  gravely,  and  even  with 
much  show  of  pious  wrath,  sought  to  have  the  wretch's  salary 
stopped  in  the  House,  so  that  the  legislature  of  "our  common 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    101 

country"  might  not  be  responsible  for  the  diffusion  of  his 
pestiferous  utterances.  Now,  protectionists  may  as  well  make 
up  their  minds  that  neither  their  opponents  nor  the  public  at 
large  will  submit  to  this  kind  of  assumption.  It  was  tried  in 
the  slavery  agitation,  and  failed.  There  was  hardly  a  defender 
of  the  institution  in  the  height  of  its  prosperity  who  did  not 
take  refuge  behind  the  Bible,  or  the  marriage  relation.  It  was 
tried,  too,  in  the  reconstruction  process,  and  failed;  and  in  the 
impeachment  process,  and  failed.  Hardly  a  question  of  im- 
portance comes  up  in  politics,  that  one  side  or  other  does  not 
entrench  itself  behind  religion  or  humanity  or  "eternal  jus- 
tice," and  proclaim  that  anybody  who  assails  the  position  is 
guilty  of  sacrilege.  But  the  age  for  successful  performance  of 
this  thoroughly  profane  trick  is  gone  by.  Anybody  who  wants 
legislation  in  our  day  in  aid  of  his  schemes,  whether  his  object 
be  his  own  private  aggrandizement,  or  the  regeneration  of 
mankind,  must  come  down  into  the  political  arena  and  main- 
tain his  cause,  on  the  same  level  and  with  the  same  weapons 
as  everybody  else.  We  have  no  privileged  opinions  in  politics 
any  more  than  privileged  classes  in  society.  All  opinions  and 
theories  are  assailable;  nay,  if  anybody  knows  any  reason  for 
thinking  that  a  dominant  policy,  no  matter  in  what  depart- 
ment of  public  affairs,  is  injurious,  he  is  bound  to  declare  it. 

The  Way  the  Income  Tax  ought  to  be  collected 

When  the  question  of  continuing  or  discontinuing  the 
income  tax  was  before  the  country,  and  the  Special  Com- 
missioner of  Revenue  pointed  out  in  his  report  that  the 
mode  of  collecting  the  revenue  was  enormously  costly, 
the  Nation  remarked  (November  25) : 

Now  the  remedy  for  all  this  seems  plain  enough.  The  state 
of  society  here  being  what  it  is  renders  necessary,  if  possible, 
more  perfect  and  efficient  collecting  machinery  than  in  Europe. 


102    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

The  habits  of  the  people  require  that  less  of  the  work  of  assess- 
ment should  be  left  to  them  than  is  left  in  Europe,  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  stronger  and  more  pervading  sense  of  in- 
terest in  and  devotion  to  the  Government  would  render  the 
proper  kind  of  assessment  and  collection  more  productive  here 
than  it  has  ever  proved  anywhere.  The  multiplicity  and  rap- 
idity of  the  changes  of  fortune  and  changes  of  places  of  abode, 
and  the  general  indifference  to  the  relation  between  means  and 
style  of  living,  to  which  Europeans  attach  so  much  importance, 
which  are  marked  characteristics  of  American  society,  not  only 
require  that  our  assessors  should  be  men  of  unusual  skill,  sa- 
gacity, tact,  discretion,  and  judgment,  but  that  they  should  be 
permanent  officers,  entirely  devoted  to  their  duties  and  thor- 
oughly acquainted  with  the  people  of  their  district,  and  com- 
petent, therefore,  not  only  to  detect  discrepancies  in  returns, 
but  extract  proper  explanations  of  them.  No  returns  should 
be  left  to  the  taxpayer's  own  judgment  or  honesty  or  memory. 
The  list  of  questions  now  suggested  to  the  assessor  should  not 
be  idle  forms  merely;  they  should  be  asked;  and  the  assessor 
should  be  a  man  of  such  training  and  manners  as  to  enable  him 
to  ask  them  inoffensively  and  to  judge  of  the  correctness  of 
the  replies,  and  should  know  enough  of  individuals  resident 
within  his  district  to  decide  whether  further  scrutiny  was  neces- 
sary, and,  if  so,  how  much.  A  glaring  difference,  for  instance, 
between  a  man's  style  of  living  and  his  income  as  returned  by 
himself,  he  should  always  be  called  on  to  account  for,  and  ac- 
count for  satisfactorily :  and  the  failure  of  a  man  keeping  up  an 
expensive  establishment  to  return  any  income  whatever  —  of 
which  there  are  many  cases  in  New  York  —  should  be  made 
the  subject  of  thorough  examination.  Of  course,  this  process 
would  keep  assessors  busy,  and  it  would  need  assessors  of  a 
very  high  order;  but  it  would  enormously  increase  the  revenue, 
particularly  in  the  large  cities,  both  by  frightening  dishonest 
men  and  enlightening  honest  ones. 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    103 

1870 

The  Legal-Tender  Decision 

The  Legal-Tender  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States  reopened  the  question  as  to  whether 
Congress  or  the  courts  have  the  right  of  deciding  what 
are  the  necessary  and  proper  means  for  the  exercise  of 
the  war  power.  The  Nation's  reflections  on  the  subject 
were  as  follows  (February  17) : 

The  business  of  the  Court  is  to  interpret  the  Constitution; 
and  even  if  it  be  true,  as  many  people  believe,  that  the  Consti- 
tution impliedly  permits  Congress  to  declare  other  things  than 
gold  and  silver  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts,  it  does  not 
follow  that  it  permits  it  to  license  debtors  to  pay  off  their  debts 
by  offering  something  of  less  value  than  they  agreed  to  pay. 
Legal  tenders  are  one  thing,  depreciated  legal  tenders  are  an- 
other thing;  and  no  court  can  be  expected  to  declare  cheating 
lawful,  unless  it  is  plainly  and  unmistakably  obliged  to  do  so 
by  the  recognized  decrees  of  the  sovereign  authority.  Congress 
may  have  the  power  to  declare  potatoes  a  legal  tender,  but  no 
court  can  infer  from  this  that  a  man  who  agreed,  before  they 
were  issued,  to  deliver  a  bushel's  worth  of  them  to  his  debtor, 
is  justified  in  only  delivering  him  half  a  bushel's  worth.  The 
Court  can  very  well  say,  and  does  say,  that  it  knows  nothing 
of  legislative  necessity,  but  that  it  does  know  that  nothing  but 
express  direction  would  justify  it  in  declaring  lawful  and  justi- 
fiable the  evasion  of  a  clear  moral  obligation. 

Moreover,  even  supposing  the  Legal-Tender  Act  was  neces- 
sary at  the  time;  supposing  even  that  the  permission  to  cheat 
creditors  was  necessary  at  the  time,  that  does  not  make  it 
necessary  now.  That  a  man  who,  in  January,  1862,  agreed 
solemnly  to  pay  one  hundred  dollars  in  gold  in  January,  1870, 
should  be  allowed  when  the  time  came  to  pay  only  seventy- 


104    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

five  dollars  in  gold,  is  surely  not  "necessary"  to  the  proper  con- 
duct of  a  war  which  ended  in  1865,  or  to  the  salvation  of  a 
nation  which  was  never  more  flourishing  or  vigorous,  and  which, 
if  it  runs  any  risk  at  all,  owes  it  to  the  weakening  of  the  indi- 
vidual moral  sense.  Many  things  which  will  not  bear  the  moral- 
ist's examination  have  to  be  done  in  war;  the  concessions  he 
ought  to  make  to  the  exigencies  of  armed  conflict  are  among 
the  darkest  problems  in  ethics,  but  then  no  such  concession 
should  be  stretched  one  inch  or  one  minute  beyond  the  occa- 
sion which  calls  for  it.  If  necessity  knows  no  law,  there  is  all 
the  greater  reason  for  getting  rid  of  necessity  at  the  earliest 
practicable  moment. 

As  to  the  future  effect  of  the  decision  in  limiting  the  powers  of 
Congress,  we  think  the  safest  plan  now  is  to  do  right,  and  leave 
the  future  to  Providence.  Let  us  stop  at  once  all  cheating  we 
can  stop.  If  cheating  be  ever  again  necessary  to  the  salvation 
of  the  country,  we  may  be  sure  it  will  be  done,  the  Supreme 
Court  decision  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  If,  which  is 
wildly  improbable,  the  national  existence  should  ever  again  be 
placed  in  the  peril  in  which  it  stood  in  1862,  we  may  be  quite 
sure  there  will  be  a  Congress  and  people  who  will  do  what  the 
case  requires.  Our  duty  is  to  set  an  example  of  justice  and  good 
faith,  and  of  respect  for  the  sanctity  of  promises.  This  is  the 
very  best  legacy  we  can  leave  to  posterity,  and  there  is  no 
surer  way  of  relieving  the  Government  from  ever  again  having 
to  issue  legal  tenders  than  paying  off  rapidly  those  now  in 
existence  —  that  is,  resuming  specie  payments. 

American  Sympathies  during  the  Franco-Prussian  War 

At  the  outbreak  of  the  Franco-Prussian  War  the  Nation 
was  in  accord  with  the  general  American  opinion  which 
saw  in  the  action  of  Louis  Napoleon  a  flagrant  violation 
of  international  right.   In  reply  to  the  argument  of  the 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    105 

New  York  World,  that,  so  far  as  any  claim  to  the  sym- 
pathy of  the  American  people  was  concerned,  Prussia 
was  on  the  same  footing  as  France,  owing  to  the  despotic 
temper  and  the  feudal  antecedents  of  the  reigning  King, 
the  Nation  said  (July  21) : 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  he  has  inherited  both  his  tem- 
per and  his  position,  and  that  he  is  a  very  old  man,  to  whose 
vagaries  the  Prussian  people  submit,  partly  because  they  en- 
tertain a  traditional  affection  for  his  house,  and  partly  because 
his  reign  must  at  best  be  short.  In  fact,  he  is  but  a  relic  of  the 
old  regime  —  the  last  surviving  monarch  who  believes  in  the 
divine  origin  of  his  own  authority.  His  heir  is  a  liberal,  and,  if 
not  a  "progressive  man"  in  our  sense  of  the  word,  is  suffi- 
ciently so  for  all  the  purposes  of  Prussian  progress,  which,  if 
not  rapid,  is  one  of  the  surest  and  strongest  things  the  modern 
world  has  to  show.  Nothing  else  certainly  has  offered  Europe 
thus  far  so  comfortable  an  escape  from  feudalism;  nothing  else 
has  been  so  successful  in  popularizing  the  government,  while 
upholding  the  claims  of  knowledge  and  skill  to  the  supreme 
control  of  human  affairs,  and  in  stimulating  industry  without 
creating  a  vast  proletariat.  The  arrogance  of  the  Prussians 
there  is  no  denying,  and  the  foreign  policy  of  Bismarck  has 
certainly  been  thoroughly  unscrupulous;  but  then  hisunscrup- 
ulousness  has  been  displayed  in  the  execution  of  schemes  to 
which  every  lover  of  his  kind  must  wish  success;  in  the  deliver- 
ance of  a  great  people  from  being  the  prey  of  despicable  and 
voracious  princelings;  and  in  the  infusion  of  activity,  large- 
ness of  aim,  and  noble  ambition  into  their  national  life.  King 
William  and  his  minister  will  pass  away.  The  work  of  their 
hands  will  last,  and  the  Prussia  they  have  aggrandized  must 
certainly  long  remain  that  community  of  the  old  world  to 
which  those  who  are  interested  in  the  improvement  of  human 
character  through  political  action  will  look  with  most  hope. 


106    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

There  is  no  enemy  of  standing  armies,  too,  —  nobody  who 
feels  the  magnitude  of  the  evils  which  these  vast  isolated 
hordes  of  idle  men  inflict  on  the  world,  —  but  must  wish  that 
when  an  army  composed  as  the  Prussian  army  largely  is, 
takes  the  field  in  a  good  cause,  victory  may  perch  on  its  ban- 
ners. An  army  in  whose  ranks  ploughmen  fresh  from  the  field, 
clerks  fresh  from  their  desks,  and  professors  fresh  from  their 
chairs,  stand  shoulder  to  shoulder,  must  always  be  an  object  of 
sympathy  to  those,  of  whatever  country,  who  look  forward  to 
the  time  when  the  soldier  will  never  be  anything  else  than  an 
armed  man  defending  his  home,  and  must,  wherever  its  "vol- 
lied  thunders"  fly,  make  the  spread  of  Csesarism  impossible. 

The  phases  of  the  war  and  the  international  questions 
involved  called  forth  many  illuminating  articles  in  the 
Nation,  of  which  a  few  are  reproduced  elsewhere  in  this 
volume. 


1871 

The  Revolt  of  the  Merchants  against  the  Tyranny  of  the  Railroads 

A  serious  state  of  affairs  developed  through  what  was 
described  as  a  revolt  of  the  merchants  against  the  tyr- 
anny of  the  railroads.  The  situation  was  thus  summar- 
ized in  the  Nation  of  April  6 : 

Only  within  the  last  few  months  the  entire  postal  service  has 
been  repeatedly  delayed,  or  at  times  totally  interrupted,  at  the 
Bergen  Tunnel,  during  the  quarrel  between  the  Erie  and  the 
Delaware,  Lackawanna,  and  Western  Railroad  Companies;  on 
the  Long  Island  Railroad,  which  is  reported  to  have  positively 
refused  to  carry  the  Sag  Harbor  mails;  at  Harrisburg,  where, 
in  a  period  of  three  months,  the  whole  or  a  part  of  the  West- 
ern newspaper  mails  was  thirty-two  times  compelled  to  lie 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    107 

over  until  next  day,  owing  to  the  wilful  neglect  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania Railroad  Company  to  provide  the  necessary  room. 
Numerous  other  cases  occurred  which  we  do  not  remember 
with  sufficient  distinctness  to  specify  here. 

The  forcible  interruption  to  traffic  on  the  Delaware,  Lacka- 
wanna, and  Western  Railroad  a  few  weeks  since;  the  riotous 
seizure  of  the  Albany  and  Susquehanna  Railroad  by  regiments 
of  armed  men,  bringing  the  State  to  the  verge  of  civil  war;  the 
wilful  derangement  of  traffic  over  the  road  to  Saratoga  last 
summer  to  enable  Commodore  Vanderbilt  to  carry  New  York 
passengers  over  the  Hudson  River  road  instead  of  permitting 
them  to  take  the  boats  from  some  of  the  river  stations;  the 
abandonment  of  the  Bangor,  Oldtown,  and  Milford  Railway  in 
Maine  at  the  behest  of  its  competitor,  the  European  and  North 
American;  the  forcible  blockading  of  the  approaches  to  the 
Suspension  Bridge,  and  the  attempt  to  burn  the  bridge  across 
Cayuga  Creek  to  prevent  the  Erie  Junction  road  from  inter- 
fering with  the  New  York  Central  —  an  act  that  brings  to 
mind  the  old  law  in  force  even  among  the  "barbarians"  of 
Peru  a  few  centuries  ago,  according  to  which  "to  burn  a  bridge 
was  death;"  the  refusal  of  the  New  Jersey  Railroad  Company 
to  forward  passengers  to  Washington,  owing  to  their  dispute 
with  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Company;  the  Minnesota  Rail- 
road ring  that  made  a  desperate  and  partially  successful  effort 
last  summer  to  use  its  power  over  transportation  to  control  the 
entire  wheat  market  of  the  State;  the  New  Haven  Railroad 
exercising  a  censorship  of  the  press  by  prohibiting  the  sale  and 
transportation  on  its  line  of  a  newspaper  that  had  dared  to 
criticise  its  management;  the  trebling  of  freights  on  coal  during 
the  bitter  winter  months  of  January  and  February,  when 
thousands  of  poor  in  the  Atlantic  cities  were  all  but  perishing 
of  cold;  the  additional  two  dollars  a  ton  put  on  the  rates  by  the 
Reading  Railroad  Company  in  March,  when  it  found  that 
some  coal  was  still  being  mined;  the  case  of  passengers  hustled 


108    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

off  the  cars  for  infractions  of  petty  rules  of  the  companies,  and 
especially  of  those  who  were  thrust  off  trains  while  in  motion 
over  trestle-bridges;  the  despatch  from  the  president  to  the 
conductor  of  a  passenger  train  on  the  Morris  and  Essex  Rail- 
road: 

"Put  your  train  on  the  side  switch,  and  keep  it  there  until 
the  commuter  and  his  backers  conform  to  the  rules  of  the 
company.  Sam  Sloan." 

—  all  this  is  strong  enough  support  for  our  statement.  But  we 
advise  our  readers  also  to  turn  to  the  petition  of  the  citizens  of 
the  city  of  New  York,  published  in  the  daily  papers  of  March 
29,  in  which,  over  the  signatures  of  more  than  five  hundred  of 
the  most  responsible  and  respectable  mercantile  firms  in  every 
branch  of  the  city  trade,  there  is  set  forth  in  detail  a  system  of 
extortion,  ill  usage,  tyranny,  and  corruption  on  the  part  of  the 
New  York  Central  and  Hudson  River  Railroad  Company. 

As  to  the  manner  in  which  the  country  was  to  resume 
control  of  the  power  usurped  by  individuals  and  corpo- 
rations, the  Nation  was  sceptical.  New  York  merchants 
appeared  to  be  divided  in  opinion. 

Their  general  appeal  to  the  Legislature  [the  Nation  said],  to 
remove  certain  special  evils,  and  to  regulate  rates  of  fare  and 
transportation  on  all  railroads  running  in  this  State,  evinces 
more  confidence  in  the  State  Legislature  than  that  body  mer- 
its, especially  after  their  recent  unjust  repeal  of  the  Delaware 
and  Hudson  Canal  Company's  charter  amendment  at  the 
bidding  of  the  very  Central  and  Hudson  River  Company  in- 
dicted before  them.  Even  were  the  present  Legislature  as  hon- 
est as  it  is  corrupt,  as  intelligent  as  it  is  ignorant,  it  might  still 
be  doubtful  whether  any  remedy  it  could  devise  and  enforce 
would  cover  the  ground,  since  it  is  chiefly  the  inter-State  rela- 
tions of  the  different  roads  which  give  them  their  greatest 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    109 

power  for  evil,  and  over  these  connections  outside  the  State 
limits  our  Legislature  would,  of  course,  exercise  no  authority, 


1872 

The  Public  Reception  of  Mr.  Greeley  3  Nomination 

The  Cincinnati  Convention  which  nominated  Mr. 
Greeley  for  the  Presidency  plunged  thousands  of  inde- 
pendent voters  all  over  the  country  into  perplexing 
doubt.  The  result  of  the  Convention,  which  was  to  have 
united  in  a  third  party  the  best  elements  of  the  two 
others,  was  a  bitter  disappointment  to  the  Nation.  The 
paper  had  warned  the  patriotic  men  chiefly  instrumental 
in  calling  the  Convention  together  that  the  country 
would  not  be  satisfied  with  a  mere  change  of  adminis- 
tration; that  in  order  to  get  it  to  repudiate  Grant,  some 
one  not  only  confessedly  better  than  he.  but  unmistak- 
ably good  in  himself,  would  have  to  be  nominated. 

At  first  view  [the  Nation  said,  May  30],  it  was  natural  to 
imagine  that  Greeley  would  be  a  popular  candidate.  But  the 
difficulty  is  that  men  who  are  enthusiastic  about  Mr.  Greeley 
are  not  apt  to  care  much  for  reform,  while  ardent  reformers 
cannot  be  enthusiastic  about  Mr.  Greeley.  There  was  cer- 
tainly no  lack  of  enthusiasm  before  and  during  the  Convention. 
But  the  enthusiasm  was  one  for  facts  and  ideas:  that  expected 
for  Mr.  Greeley  was  of  the  traditional  raccoon  and  log-cabin 
sort.  The  only  enthusiasm  it  is  now  in  the  power  of  this  coun- 
try to  give,  Mr.  C.  F.  Adams  was  the  man  to  embody.  He 
would  have  had  at  his  back  the  "honest  few  that  give  the  devil 
even  his  due"  —  the  men  who  neither  find  truth  in  the  ex- 
tremes nor  yet  get  at  it  with  a  pair  of  compasses  midway  be- 
tween them,  but  recognize  it  wherever  it  appears;  who  see 


110    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

things  as  they  are  and  not  as  they  ought  to  be;  who  believe  in 
law;  who  have  an  imperative  sense  of  doing  little  things  well; 
and  who  consider  it  not  unpatriotic  to  accept  the  experiences 
of  other  countries  where  we  have  none  of  our  own.  From  men 
who  believe  in  these  things,  Mr.  Greeley  could  never  get  any- 
thing but  a  lukewarm  and  an  enforced  support.  We  are  not 
now  in  a  condition  to  live  over  again  one  of  our  historic  Presi- 
dential excitements.  But  even  if  we  were,  we  doubt  if  Mr. 
Greeley  could  inspire  the  people  with  one  of  the  old-time  pas- 
sions. He  is  not  quite  the  sort  of  man  to  be  the  pet  of  barbe- 
cues and  village  processions.  The  popular  leaders  who  have 
heretofore  attracted  the  women  with  their  babies  to  the  mass- 
meetings,  and  caused  hungry  followers  to  roast  and  devour 
whole  oxen,  have  had  in  their  port  a  little  more  of  command, 
have  appeared  with  a  little  more  of  station  before  the  people. 
Have  we  not  exaggerated  Greeley's  strength  with  the  multi- 
tude? Have  we  not  confused  familiarity  with  popularity?  A 
man's  character  may  be  very  familiar  to  us,  and  yet  we  may 
not  have  very  great  affection  for  or  confidence  in  him.  We 
may  have  confidence  in  his  honesty,  but  it  does  not  follow  we 
should  put  great  trust  in  his  ability.  The  people  relied  implic- 
itly upon  Jackson;  they  believed  him  to  be  the  one  man  who 
could  lead  and  rule  them,  and  they  were  utterly  impatient  of 
anybody  who  thought  otherwise;  not  the  most  gushing  of  lady 
correspondents  could  "rest  on"  Mr.  Greeley.  The  state  of 
mind  which  the  farming  population  of  this  country  is  supposed 
to  entertain  towards  him,  we  fancy,  is  exaggerated.  With  the 
newspapers,  and  the  telegraphs,  and  the  immense  dead-level  of 
intelligence  through  the  land,  it  is  impossible  that  what  has  so 
long  been  the  true  estimate  of  Greeley  should  not  by  this  time 
have  percolated  into  the  remotest  agricultural  regions.  The 
bucolic  patriot  from  whom  so  much  is  expected  will  probably, 
after  all,  turn  out  to  be  the  figment  of  a  not  very  cautious 
imagination. 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    111 

The  Verdict  at  Geneva 

The  result  of  the  Geneva  arbitration  was  accepted 
with  solid  satisfaction  by  the  country  and,  not  least  of 
all,  by  those  who  had  had  a  hand  in  bringing  it  about  or 
in  conducting  it.  The  Nation,  which  had  commented 
throughout  with  acknowledged  competence  and  restraint 
on  the  varying  phases  of  the  Alabama  controversy,  might 
well  say,  as  it  did  in  its  issue  of  September  19: 

And  now,  before  passing  away,  we  trust  for  ever,  from  this 
long  and  exciting  controversy,  it  is  perhaps  due  to  those  of 
our  readers  who  have  honored  us  with  their  confidence  and 
forbearance,  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  no  doctrine  the 
Nation  has  ever  combatted  has  received  any  countenance  from 
the  arbitrators,  while  every  position  it  has  ever  maintained  has 
been  fully  confirmed.  We  have  for  seven  years  scouted  the 
notion  that  the  concession  of  "belligerent  rights"  to  the  Con- 
federates was  of  any  importance  in  the  controversy  (except  as  a 
bit  of  evidence  on  the  point  of  animus),  in  opposition  to  the 
popular  and  rhetorical  view  that  it  was  the  very  head  and  front 
of  England's  offence.  It  has  not  been  even  mentioned  before 
the  Board.  We  argued  that  England  was  liable  without  refer- 
ence to  it;  she  has  been  held  so  to  be.  We  insisted  all  along 
that  she  ought  to  apologize  for  the  escape  of  the  Alabama,  and 
predicted  that  she  would;  she  has  done  so.  Finally,  we  derided 
the  "  indirect  claims,"  and  they  have  been  for  ever  barred  and 
extinguished  amidst  the  laughter  of  the  civilized  world  and  the 
blushes  of  their  authors. 

"The  People"  and  the  Municipal  Government 

The  various  propositions  of  municipal  reformers  to 
amend  the  charter  of  the  city  of  New  York  called  forth 
the  following  remarks  from  the  Nation  (December  19): 


112    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  there  are  certain  fundamental 
evils,  as  they  may  be  termed,  underlying  our  city  government, 
and  that  no  scheme  for  a  charter  can  succeed,  however  ingen- 
ious or  complete  in  its  details,  which  does  not  take  them  in  as 
conditions  to  the  problem.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  an  incon- 
trovertible fact  that  not  only  a  large  portion,  but  even  a  large 
majority,  of  our  population  consists  of  foreigners,  ignorant, 
unused  to  the  exercise  of  the  elective  franchise,  unendowed 
with  the  self-restraint  and  instinctive  discrimination  of  men 
bred  to  the  responsibilities  of  citizenship  and  self-government, 
and  trained  from  the  day  of  their  landing  to  follow  the  political 
leadership  of  the  men  whom  we  are  virtually  trying  to  depose 
and  keep  deposed.  In  a  European  city  community  this  mass 
would  simply  have  to  be  provided  for,  and  that  would  be  re- 
garded as  a  sufficiently  difficult  task;  but  with  us  they  have 
been  elevated  to  the  rank  of  providers.  Having  nothing  of  the 
sense  of  responsibility,  they  nevertheless  have  the  power  of 
voting;  and  as  this  power  without  responsibility  is  for  the  pres- 
ent inevitable,  many  persons  are  disposed  to  ignore  it  alto- 
gether, and  plan  a  charter  on  the  pure  assumption  that  the  re- 
sponsible part  of  the  community  constitutes  the  majority.  In 
the  second  place,  the  respectable  part  of  the  community,  as  it 
is  termed,  consists  of  men  struggling  with  the  highest  taxes  and 
highest  rents  to  be  found  in  any  city  in  the  world  —  a  majority 
of  whom  have  no  early  associations  with  the  city,  having  come 
here  in  the  pursuit  of  wealth,  most  of  whom  are  more  engrossed 
in  business,  and  all  of  whom  are  more  indifferent  to  the  duties 
of  citizenship,  than  any  other  American  community.  It  has 
been  for  at  least  thirty  years  a  saying  that  "  the  men  of  New 
York  are  too  busy  to  vote,"  and  voting  is  but  a  small  part  of 
the  sacrifice  necessary  for  effective  action.  In  the  third  place, 
our  machinery  of  government,  through  the  frequency  of  elec- 
tions and  the  number  of  offices  to  be  filled  by  election,  is  so 
complicated  as  to  have  called  into  existence  certain  bands  of 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS     113 

trained  plunderers  known  as  professional  politicians;  and  the 
system  is  such  that  it  not  only  secures  to  these  men  constant 
occupation,  but  it  also  furnishes  them  with  the  means  for  car- 
rying on  their  predatory  warfare,  by  providing  for  their  fol- 
lowers a  vast  number  of  offices  always  vacant,  or,  what  is  the 
same  thing,  about  to  become  vacant.  Therefore,  we  see,  as  the 
results  of  our  system  and  the  conditions  of  our  society,  first,  a 
set  of  adventurers,  who  in  the  nineteenth  century  are  profes- 
sional politicians,  but  who  in  the  fourteenth  would  have  been 
free-riders  and  outlaws;  second,  a  respectable  community  pe- 
culiarly ill-fitted  to  contend  with  them;  third,  a  large  ignorant 
populace  furnishing  them  with  the  armed  following  they  espe- 
cially require;  and  fourth,  the  means  provided  for  rewarding 
their  followers,  and  keeping  them  constantly  equipped  and  in 
the  field.  More  unfavorable  conditions  for  the  existence  of  free 
government,  and  more  adroit  artifices  for  the  maintenance  of 
all  that  is  bad  in  our  present  system,  could  hardly  have  been 
framed  and  forced  upon  a  community.  Our  present  civilization 
does  not  admit  of  the  armed  bands  that  existed  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  going  about  the  country  as  land-pirates  levying  contribu- 
tions on  cities,  but  we  are  subjected  to  the  same  plunderings, 
effected  in  the  guise  of  "politics"  instead  of  in  the  guise  of 
warfare. 

It  is,  therefore,  idle  to  talk  of  any  one  change  as  certain  to 
effect  a  reformation.  Some  persons  are  strenuous  in  asserting 
that  all  that  is  necessary  to  be  done  is  to  restore  to  "the  peo- 
ple" of  New  York  full  and  complete  power  to  manage  their 
own  municipal  affairs.  But  there  has  never  been  a  time  when 
a  majority  of  the  people  could  not  have  restrained  the  city 
government  in  its  expenditures,  and  compelled  an  honest  ad- 
ministration of  its  affairs,  if  there  had  been  a  majority  really 
determined  to  do  it.  The  trouble  has  not  been  with  the  power, 
but  with  "the  people"  —  a  people  in  part  absorbed  in  other 
matters,  and  in  part  fully  satisfied  with  their  city  affairs  and 


114    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

the  men  who  manage  them.  The  persons  who  favor  this  gen- 
eral restoration  of  power  to  the  people  must  do  so  in  the  rec- 
ollection of  earlier  times,  and  in  forgetfulness  of  the  fact  that 
the  first  merchants  and  lawyers  of  New  York  then  controlled 
political  meetings  and  deemed  it  an  honor  to  hold  the  office  of 
alderman.  The  departure  of  local  powers  was  not  a  cause  but 
a  sequence;  after  the  decline  in  our  municipal  affairs  had  be- 
come apparent,  the  increased  interference  of  the  State  with 
the  city  government  was  invoked  as  a  remedy. 


1873 
Chief-Justice  Chase 


The  Nation's  estimate  of  the  qualities  of  Chief -Justice 
Chase  coincides,  it  is  safe  to  say,  with  the  verdict  of 
history.  We  quote  from  its  obituary  article  (May  15) 
the  following  passages: 

In  Mr.  Chase's  own  opinion  and  that  of  his  friends  and  fol- 
lowers, his  political  conduct  was  never  inconsistent  with  his 
attitude  in  his  early  days.  Thus  they  justify  what  his  enemies 
have  condemned  as  his  coquetting  with  the  Democrats  in  1867 
and  1868.  He  would  never,  they  say,  have  been  anything  but  a 
Democrat  had  it  not  been  that  the  Democrats  adopted  the  un- 
democratic institution  of  slavery;  that  once  gone,  he  was  again 
a  Democrat.  We  need  not  stop  here  to  examine  into  the  ques- 
tion whether,  if  the  spirit  of  slavery  was  in  1865  the  essence  of 
Democratic  doctrine,  it  could  in  1867  have  been  much  else  than 
that.  But  whatever  calamity  was  or  was  not  averted  when  the 
Chief  Justice  failed  to  be  nominated  at  Tammany  Hall,  we 
may  be  absolutely  sure  of  one  thing  —  that  there  was  involved 
in  that  failure  a  very  bitter  disappointment  to  a  man  whose 
ambition  and  sense  of  masterful  fitness  made  him  eagerly  long 
for  the  place  —  be  the  Democracy  what  it  might.  What  other 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    115 

Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States  ever  so  desired  and  sought 
the  Presidency  as  to  make  thinly  disguised  electioneering  tours 
for  the  purpose  of  keeping  himself  before  the  people?  Un- 
doubtedly it  was  his  burning  ambition  for  the  coveted  honor 
which  made  it  possible  for  this  proud  and  honorable  man  to 
degrade  so  greatly  a  dignity  and  place  so  high.  It  is  the  chief 
dimness  on  a  most  honorable  record. 

His  career  as  a  politician,  or  rather  as  a  statesman,  in  the 
great  struggle  which  so  occupied  the  minds  of  that  genera- 
tion of  the  public  men  of  whom  we  are  now  almost  daily  taking 
leave,  is  well  known,  and  still  better  do  we  know  his  career  as 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  Yet  in  this  latter  capacity  some  in- 
justice has  been  done  him  which  he  can  ill  afford;  for  of  neces- 
sity his  financial  procedure  was  of  a  kind,  and  on  a  scale 
and  under  a  pressure  which  made  his  work  open  to  some  seri- 
ous objections;  but  it  is  not  open  to  the  heaviest  objection  of 
all:  neither  the  origination  nor  recommendation  of  the  legal- 
tender  feature  of  his  financial  scheme  is  to  be  charged  to  him. 
He  never  wished  that  feature  adopted;  he  has  always  main- 
tained that  its  operation  should  have  long  since  ceased.  .  .  . 

As  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States,  there  has  been  in  Mr. 
Chase's  life  the  same  mingling  of  individual  and  circumstantial 
success.  It  has  been  his  peculiar  fortune  to  have  taken  a 
leading  part  in  the  legislative  history  which  preceded  the  Re- 
bellion, and  in  executive  management  during  the  Rebellion, 
and  then  to  have  passed  judicially  upon  all  of  the  important 
constitutional  and  legal  questions  that  have  arisen  out  of  the 
Rebellion.  Mr.  Seward  took  part  with  him  in  the  first  and 
the  second  of  these,  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Stanton  in  the  execu- 
tive, but  Mr.  Chase  alone  is  prominent  in  all  three  of  these 
most  important  chapters  of  the  national  history.  The  nine 
annual  terms  through  which  he  has  presided  constitute  a  judi- 
cial period  of  little  less  importance  than  that  period  of  con- 
stitutional interpretation  which  it  was  the  fortune  of  Chief 


116    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

Justice  Marshall  almost  exclusively  to  fill.  For  many  years  to 
come  the  decisions  of  these  nine  terms  will  be  referred  to  by 
lawyers,  legislators,  and  constitutional  students  more  than  any 
others.  In  them  the  late  Chief  Justice  will  always  appear 
prominent  and  never  far  from  right.  He  brought  to  the  court 
no  store  of  legal  learning,  but  he  brought  comprehensive  views, 
considerable  power  of  generalization,  and  a  just  sense  of  con- 
stitutional rights  and  judicial  responsibility.  Of  this  latter  he 
gave  a  signal  example  during  the  impeachment  trial  of  Presi- 
dent Johnson.  Entirely  unmoved  by  the  clamor  of  the  party 
managers  and  the  party  press,  he  maintained  complete  im- 
partiality, which,  however,  could  teach  them  neither  dignity 
nor  decency,  and  brought  on  him  their  most  savage  maledic- 
tions. 

"  If  any  care  for  what  is  here 
Survive  in  spirits  rendered  free," 

he  must  now  listen  to  some  of  the  praises  which  are  poured  out 
on  his  life  and  actions  with  a  touch  of  sorrow  for  men  who  so 
little  know  how  to  honor  their  great  while  these  live,  and  are 
so  little  able  to  respect  themselves  when  their  great  have  gone 
from  among  them,  but  cover  with  unmeasured  laudation  the 
man  whom  once  they  brutally  maligned.  In  upholding  the 
rights  of  the  citizen  against  the  exercise  of  arbitrary  power  by 
the  Executive,  and  the  responsibility  of  the  Executive  and 
Judiciary  against  the  unconstitutional  usurpations  of  Con- 
gress, and  in  striving  to  maintain  the  financial  integrity  of  the 
country  against  a  demoralization  which  allows  a  man  to  bor- 
row gold  and  repay  it  in  irredeemable  paper,  he  has  been  firm 
and  liberal  and  just;  and  his  judicial  services  will  be  more 
highly  esteemed  when  it  is  more  clearly  perceived  that  they 
uniformly  tend  to  the  maintenance  of  those  principles  which 
are  the  basis  of  national  integrity,  personal  or  political. 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    117 

The  "  Virginius" 

On  the  morning  of  November  7,  Captain  Fry  and 
thirty-seven  of  the  crew  of  the  Virginius  were  shot  at 
Santiago,  by  the  order  of  the  Spanish  general  in  com- 
mand. The  facts  of  the  case,  as  summarized  by  the 
Nation  (November  20),  were  as  follows: 

The  Virginius  was  an  American-built  steamer  originally 
engaged  in  ordinary  commerce.  About  two  years  ago  she  was 
bought  by  the  Cuban  insurgents  who  are  stationed  in  this 
country,  although  doubtless  the  title  was  taken  in  the  name  of 
some  American  citizen.  She  once  had,  of  course,  an  American 
register,  and  we  assume  that  this  register  has  never  been 
changed,  no  matter  who  her  real  owners  may  have  been  and 
are.  Since  her  purchase  she  has  been  used  to  convey  warlike 
supplies,  arms,  material,  and  probably  men,  to  the  insurgents 
upon  the  island,  but  where  she  obtained  her  cargoes  it  is  not 
now  necessary  to  enquire.  On  the  last  voyage  she  had  on  board, 
besides  a  cargo  of  war  material,  a  large  body  of  Cubans  who 
beyond  a  doubt  were  intending  to  join  the  forces  with  which 
they  sympathized.  She  took  on  this  cargo  at  and  sailed  from 
Kingston  under  the  United  States  flag.  Her  destination  was 
some  concealed  and  favorable  point  on  the  coast  of  Cuba, 
where  she  was  to  unload  the  arms  and  ammunition  and  dis- 
charge the  recruits.  Nearing  this  coast  she  was  seen  by  a 
Spanish  gunboat,  and  immediately  turned  her  course  towards 
the  island  of  Jamaica.  The  Spanish  man-of-war  pursued,  over- 
took, and  captured  her.  This  capture  was  either  on  the  high 
seas  or  within  the  territorial  waters  of  Jamaica. 

In  an  article  on  "What  Does  the  Flag  Protect?" 
(November  27)  the  Nation  discussed  the  international 
aspect  of  the  matter. 


118    FIFTY  YEAES  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

As  the  result  of  long  and  fierce  wars  between  maritime  coun- 
tries, it  is  now  an  accepted  principle  —  one  of  the  doctrines 
which  lie  at  the  foundation  of  modern  international  law  — 
that  the  ocean  is  the  common  highway  of  the  world.  Belonging 
to  no  power,  it  can  be  used  by  all  alike;  each  has  upon  it  the 
same  rights  as  all  the  others;  each  may  navigate  it  unmolested 
by  the  others,  except  when  war  introduces  some  modification 
of  these  common  rights,  which  affects  both  the  combatants 
themselves  and  also  the  other  nations  which,  not  taking  a 
direct  part  in  the  contest,  are  called  neutrals.  The  jurisdiction 
of  every  independent  and  sovereign  state  —  that  is,  its  power 
over  persons  and  things  —  is,  in  respect  of  the  place  of  its  ex- 
ercise, twofold.  This  jurisdiction  may  be  exercised  over  all 
persons  and  things  within  the  national  territory;  it  may  be 
exercised  over  the  persons  and  things  of  its  own  citizens  upon 
the  high  seas.  The  vessels  of  a  nation,  whether  public  men- 
of-war  or  private  ships  of  commerce,  are  by  a  certain  fiction 
spoken  of  as  parts  of  the  national  territory.  As  long  as  these 
vessels  remain  upon  the  open  sea,  this  fiction  represents  with 
sufficient  accuracy  the  exact  truth,  and  on  it  the  only  limit 
to  the  actual  power  of  the  nation  is  a  physical  one.  In  other 
words  —  and  we  merely  state  the  same  proposition  in  different 
terms  —  the  private  commercial  vessels  of  a  nation  are  always 
under  the  operation  of  the  country's  municipal  law  while  upon 
the  high  seas,  and  are,  therefore,  liable  to  be  stopped,  searched, 
and  seized,  in  any  manner  and  by  any  instrument  prescribed  by 
that  law  —  for  example,  by  a  national  man-of-war.  The  same 
convenient  fiction  which  regards  a  ship  on  the  ocean  as  a 
detached  portion  of  the  country  to  which  it  belongs,  carries 
the  local  law  and  jurisdiction  of  that  country  after  the  vessel, 
wherever  found  upon  the  high  seas,  and  thus  extends  such  law 
and  jurisdiction,  in  respect  to  these  movable  objects,  to  all 
parts  of  the  world.  This  holds  good,  whatever  may  be  the  char- 
acter, business,  designs,  motives,  or  intentions  of  the  owners 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    119 

of  these  national  vessels.  If  certain  subjects  of  a  sovereign, 
independent  state  revolt,  and  any  condition  of  hostilities 
arises,  the  original  jurisdiction  of  that  state  over  the  ships, 
warlike  or  commercial,  belonging  to  its  insurgent  subjects  on 
the  high  seas  continues  through  all  possible  phases  of  the  con- 
test, until  the  parent  government  has  itself  recognized  the  in- 
dependence of  its  former  subjects.  The  acts  of  other  nations  do 
not  and  cannot  affect  this  original  jurisdiction;  recognition 
of  belligerency,  recognition  of  independence  even,  by  other 
states  does  not  sever  the  tie  which  joined  the  parent  nation  and 
all  its  people.  Such  recognition  simply  affects  the  relations 
subsisting  between  the  two  hostile  communities  and  the  neutral 
countries  granting  the  recognition. 

The  number  of  independent  sovereign  states  which  form  at 
any  time  the  whole  family  of  civilized  peoples  acknowledging 
the  modern  international  law  is  known  and  established  by 
mutual  agreement  as  a  fact,  and  no  new  member  can  be  re- 
ceived without  the  consent  of  the  others,  which  consent  is 
expressed  in  the  act  of  recognition.  This  existing  status  of 
independent  nations,  and  this  possibility  of  independent  juris- 
diction over  the  high  seas,  running  with  and  exercised  upon 
the  vessels  of  war  or  of  commerce,  has  made  it  necessary  that 
the  nationality  of  every  vessel  should  be  certified  to  the  world 
in  some  manner,  so  that  the  sovereignity  and  jurisdiction  un- 
der which  she  sails  should  be  respected.  The  ship's  papers  or 
commission,  officially  authenticated  at  home,  and  the  flag  are 
the  means  of  certification.  A  private  unarmed  ship,  without 
such  official  papers  from  some  recognized  country,  and  not 
bearing  the  flag  of  such  a  country,  is  without  the  protection  of 
the  international  law,  and  would  not  be  suffered  to  engage  in 
commerce;  she  would  be  condemned  and  subjected  to  forfeit- 
ure by  the  municipal  law  of  the  first  port  which  she  entered. 
What  is  the  condition  of  an  armed  vessel  or  transport  carrying 
no  commission  and  flag  from  a  government  properly  recog- 


120    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

nized?  Technically,  she  is  a  pirate.  In  former  times  an  actual 
pirate  was  treated  as  an  enemy  of  mankind,  and  was  liable  to 
be  captured  on  the  ocean  by  any  power,  while  the  crew  were 
justiciable  in  any  country.  The  law  of  nations  regards  other 
armed  vessels  as  pirates  who  differ  far  from  the  freebooters  to 
whom  the  name  is  popularly  given;  thus,  a  privateer  bearing 
commissions  from  two  different  governments  is  a  pirate.  At 
the  present  day,  however,  it  is  certain  that  such  a  privateer 
would  not  be  treated  as  a  pirate  by  any  nations  whose  com- 
merce she  had  not  molested.  In  the  same  manner,  while  an 
armed  man-of-war  and  a  transport  having  a  commission  and 
flag  of  a  people  which  had  received  no  recognition  —  that  is,  of 
a  rebellious  community  to  which  the  right  of  belligerency  had 
not  been  accorded  —  would  technically  be  a  pirate  by  the  in- 
ternational law,  she  would  not  be  practically  treated  as  such 
by  the  countries  not  taking  a  part  in  the  contest,  but  might 
be  and  would  be  piratical  as  regards  the  parent  state  against 
which  she  was  carrying  on  hostilities.  Hence  arises  the  over- 
whelming necessity  to  a  revolted  community  of  being  recog- 
nized in  some  manner  that  shall  give  it  a  quasi  national  stand- 
ing. It  is  plain,  therefore,  that  prior  to  the  lowest  grade  of 
recognition  —  that  of  belligerency  —  a  revolted  province  can- 
not carry  on  maritime  warfare  against  the  parent  government, 
cannot  resort  to  the  use  of  armed  ships  or  transports  sailing 
under  its  own  flag,  without  rendering  these  vessels  technically 
piratical,  and  without  subjecting  the  officers  and  crews  tech- 
nically to  the  penalties  of  piracy.  Unless  the  insurgents  are 
powerful  in  comparison  with  their  enemies,  and  have  exten- 
sive maritime  resources  —  in  which  case  they  would  undoubt- 
edly be  at  once  recognized  as  belligerents  —  they  must  of 
necessity,  as  was  stated  in  our  former  article,  pursue  their 
maritime  warfare  under  the  cover  of  some  other  flag  —  some 
flag  belonging  to  a  sovereign  nation,  which  must,  of  course, 
be  a  mere  spectator  of  the  conflict.    That  this  use  would  be 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    121 

fraudulent,  would  be  an  outrage  upon  the  neutral,  and  might 
subject  it  to  severe  reclamations  from  the  parent  state,  was 
the  very  doctrine  maintained  by  the  United  States  in  the  Ala- 
bama controversy,  and  triumphantly  enforced  in  the  Treaty 
of  Washington  and  by  the  Geneva  Arbitration. 


1874 
President  Grant's  Veto 


President  Grant's  veto  of  the  inflation  bill  was  char- 
acterized by  the  Nation  as  "one  of  those  political  acts 
which  not  only  gain  for  a  man  immense  popularity,  but 
which  entitle  him  to  even  more  of  it  than  he  gains." 
The  paper  pointed  out  that  the  difficulties  surrounding 
General  Grant  were  so  serious  that  it  was  not  for  a 
moment  supposed  that  he  would  refrain  from  signing 
the  bill. 

Now  that  the  inflation  bubble  is  pricked  [the  Nation  re- 
marked, April  30],  we  shall  probably  see  how  baseless  were  the 
statements  that  the  people  of  the  West  really  desired  the  issue 
of  a  flood  of  paper  money.  The  only  loud  and  pronounced  ex- 
pression of  popular  feeling  on  the  subject,  the  only  large  and 
imposing  meetings  that  have  been  held,  even  in  the  West,  have 
been  to  oppose  inflation.  Those  who  think  that  there  is  any 
likelihood  of  a  sectional  struggle  between  the  East  on  one  hand, 
and  the  West  and  South  on  the  other,  or,  at  any  rate,  of  a 
struggle  ending  in  a  victory  for  inflation,  seem  to  forget  what 
the  actual  relations  existing  between  these  divisions  of  the  coun- 
try are.  The  South  is  an  impoverished  and  conquered  country, 
which,  if  its  prosperity  is  going  to  revive  at  all,  must  first  gain 
the  aid  of  Northern  capital.  It  is  absolutely  dependent  now  for 
its  very  existence  on  the  North  and  on  Europe.  What  it  wants 
is  European  or  Northern  enterprise,  capital,  energy,  and  immi- 


122    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

grants.  To  suppose  that  it  is  going  to  get  these  by  means  of  the 
allurements  of  the  very  paper  money  which  the  North  and  the 
principal  European  countries  denounce  as  being  dishonest,  is  a 
very  strange  delusion;  and  to  begin  a  great  national  campaign 
for  the  purpose  of  stimulating  the  industries  of  the  country 
and  attracting  capital  and  increasing  credit,  with  loud  and  in- 
timidating cries  directed  against  the  only  part  of  the  country 
which  can  give  credit  and  has  much  accumulated  capital,  is  an 
undertaking  which  will  probably  on  reflection  seem  dangerous 
even  to  very  confident  Southern  statesmen.  As  to  the  West, 
its  business  is  carried  on  by  Eastern  and  foreign  capital.  The 
very  highways  of  commerce  in  the  West  are  railroads  built  by 
the  money  of  New  York  and  New  England  men.  Now,  these 
New  York  and  New  England  men  have  plainly  said,  during  the 
last  few  weeks  since  the  inflation  agitation  began :  "  Your  infla- 
tion schemes  take  away  from  us  that  feeling  of  security  which 
is  the  only  inducement  we  have  to  lend  you  money.  The  at- 
tempt made  within  the  past  year  to  plunder  the  railroads  has 
shaken  our  confidence  both  in  your  good  sense  and  in  your 
honesty;  and  we  do  not  mean  to  help  you  any  more  until  we  see 
whether  on  the  currency  question  you  are  willing  to  behave  like 
prudent  and  honorable  borrowers,  or  whether  you  are  really 
engaged  in  a  desperate  game  of  swindling  and  robbing  your 
creditors." 

The  importance  of  the  veto  is  heightened  by  the  fact  that  it 
will  strengthen  the  courts  in  their  resistance  to  paper-money 
intrigue.  The  only  ground  on  which  any  attempt  has  been 
made  to  hold  the  legal-tender  enactments  constitutional  was 
the  overwhelming  necessity  of  war.  The  decision  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  was  based  entirely  on  this,  and  it  would  certainly 
be  difficult  to  find  in  any  decided  case  any  warrant  for  the  prop- 
osition that  Congress  has  authority  to  make  new  issues  of  paper 
legal  tender.  It  sometimes  seems,  as  in  the  discussion  of  the 
transportation  question,  as  if  people  had  forgotten  that  there 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    123 

was  such  a  body  as  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States, 
invested  with  the  power  and  charged  with  the  duty  of  inter- 
preting the  Constitution  as  the  supreme  law  of  the  land.  But 
the  inflationists  may  as  well  confess  that  with  the  President 
against  them,  with  public  opinion  against  them,  with  at  least 
half  the  Supreme  Court  and  all  the  educated  lawyers  of  the 
country  against  them,  it  will  be  up-hill  work  to  create  the 
great  cheap-money  party  of  which  we  have  heard  so  much. 

Alaska  Forty  Years  Ago 

It  is  interesting  to  recall  that,  forty  years  ago,  a  whole- 
sale migration  of  Icelanders  to  Alaska  was  thought  of. 
When  Alaska  was  transferred  to  the  United  States,  the 
annexation,  as  the  Nation  remarked  (December  10),  was 
generally  supposed  to  be  for  glory  and  the  extension  of 
the  national  sovereignty,  and  Mr.  Seward  was  much 
laughed  at  for  his  folly.  The  speeches  delivered,  too,  over 
our  new  Polar  acquisition  were  popularly  treated  as  so 
much  buncombe. 

It  seems,  however  [the  paper  said]  that  the  purchase  is  very 
likely  to  prove  a  piece  of  good  luck  for  us,  and  perhaps  in  after 
ages  will  redound  to  the  credit  of  Mr.  Seward's  statesmanship, 
as  having,  at  least,  annexed  more  wisely  than  he  knew.  The 
Icelanders,  after  having  lived  what,  from  all  accounts,  must 
have  been  an  uncomfortable  life  in  Iceland  for  a  thousand 
years,  are  preparing  to  celebrate  their  "millennial"  period  by 
emigrating  en  masse;  and,  in  looking  round  over  the  globe  for 
some  place  of  settlement  which  shall  at  once  be  habitable, 
possess  a  comfortable  climate,  and  at  the  same  time  remind 
them  of  home,  they  have  hit  upon  Alaska.  Some  time  since 
they  appointed  a  commission  to  visit  the  country;  and  the 
United  States,  with  very  thoughtful  liberality,  lent  the  com- 
missioners a  ship  to  make  the  trip  in.  The  Portsmouth  has  just 


124    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

returned,  and  the  commissioners  are  reported  as  very  much 
pleased  with  their  visit.  They  consider  the  country  an  im- 
provement on  Iceland,  and  report  that  it  is  not  only  capable 
of  sustaining  life,  but  also  profitable  industries.  The  Iceland- 
ers are  an  intelligent  and  industrious  people,  who  have  had 
centuries  of  education  and  civilization  of  no  mean  kind,  and 
probably  only  need  a  good  country  —  such  as  they  declare 
Alaska  to  be  —  to  enable  them  to  become  a  creditable  addi- 
tion to  the  population  of  the  United  States.  The  only  opposi- 
tion to  the  scheme  anticipated  is  that  likely  to  be  made  by 
the  trading  companies  which  have  monopoly  rights. 


1875 
The  Law  and  the  Facts  in  Louisiana 

The  interference  of  the  Federal  troops  with  the  organ- 
ization of  the  legislature  in  Louisiana,  after  the  President 
and  Congress  had  for  three  years  vainly  tried  to  grapple 
with  the  problem  of  setting  up  an  honest  government 
for  the  State,  was  severely  condemned  by  the  Nation. 
In  its  issue  of  January  14  it  said : 

It  is  clear  that  the  Louisiana  Legislature  stood,  on  the  day  of 
its  meeting,  in  the  position  of  Congress  and  all  the  other  legisla- 
tures in  the  country.  It  was  in  full  possession  of  the  "ancient, 
natural,  and  undoubted  privilege"  of  organizing  itself  in  its 
own  fashion,  and  deciding  for  this  and  all  other  purposes  who 
were  its  members  and  who  were  not.  The  law  ordained  that 
only  the  persons  named  on  the  lists  of  the  Returning  Board 
could  take  part  in  the  organization;  but  the  execution  of  the 
law  lay  with  the  legislature  itself.  No  power  on  earth  was  com- 
petent to  superintend,  revise,  or  check  its  proceedings.  If,  as 
the  Radical  members  assert,  there  was  unfairness  in  the  elec- 
tion of  the  Speaker,  it  was  a  thing  which  has  happened  before, 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    125 

which  will  happen  again,  and  for  which,  like  any  other  fault  or 
folly,  there  is  no  remedy  beyond  an  appeal  to  public  opinion. 
If  it  had  proved  impossible  to  elect  a  Speaker,  owing  to  the 
unnecessary  turbulence  or  absence  of  members,  it  would  have 
been  a  state  of  things,  however  discreditable,  which  has  been 
witnessed  in  the  Federal  House  of  Representatives  and  in  the 
General  Court  of  Massachusetts  for  days  and  weeks  together. 
If  persons  not  qualified  voted  in  the  organization,  it  was  to  the 
House  itself,  after  the  organization,  that  complaint  should  have 
been  made.  The  "petition"  addressed  by  the  Radical  mem- 
bers to  Kellogg  was  an  absurd  and  ridiculous  document,  which 
that  person  had  no  more  right  to  entertain  or  act  on  than  the 
writer  of  these  lines.  No  Governor  or  President  has  a  right  to 
have  hand,  act,  or  part  in  the  organization  of  any  legislative 
body,  or  in  controlling  or  directing  its  proceedings.  It  is  not 
amenable  to  him  in  any  manner  or  form.  If  any  one  portion  of  a 
legislative  body  finds  itself  oppressed  or  outraged  by  another,  it 
must,  under  the  immemorial  usage  of  civilized  constitutional 
states,  appeal  to  the  honor,  patriotism,  and  sense  of  justice  of 
its  opponents,  and  if  this  fails,  if  right  and  justice  are  sacrificed 
to  party,  there  is,  as  Cushing  finely  says,  "no  alternative  but  to 
appeal  to  that  tribunal  which  revises  the  decisions  of  all  others 
—  the  tribunal  of  the  future,  eternally  and  everywhere  sitting 
in  judgment  on  the  past,  whose  judges  are  the  people,  and 
whose  judgments  are  recorded  in  public  opinion."  This  is  no 
rhetorical  dictum  or  bit  of  Sentimentalist  vapor.  It  is  a  doc- 
trine which  lies  at  the  very  foundations  of  free  government;  for 
if  the  legislature  is  not  independent  or  irresponsible,  the  ex- 
ecutive is  or  may  quickly  become  a  despotism.  When  Kellogg, 
therefore,  presumed  to  act  on  the  Radical  petition,  and  called  in 
the  aid  of  the  troops  to  enable  him  to  coerce  the  majority  of  the 
members  of  the  House,  whether  that  majority  was  real  or  osten- 
sible, he  committed  a  high  crime  and  misdemeanor,  for  which 
he  ought  to  be  punished.  The  notion  which  General  Sheridan 


126    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

seems  to  entertain  that  the  Governor's  demand  for  Federal 
troops  justified  General  de  Trobriand's  action  in  the  House, 
may  be  put  in  the  same  category  with  the  notion  that  American 
citizens  can  be  outlawed  by  Executive  proclamation. 


1876 

The  Centennial  Celebration 

In  an  article  on  the  Fourth  of  July  celebration  of  the 
Centennial  year,  the  Nation  referred  to  the  addresses  of 
Mr.  Evarts,  Dr.  Storrs,  Mr.  Winthrop,  and  Mr.  Charles 
Francis  Adams  as  showing  that  the  theme  had  grown 
too  vast  to  be  successfully  dealt  with  by  any  of  the  old 
methods. 

Mr.  Evarts,  as  the  Centennial  orator  at  Philadelphia  [the 
Nation  said],  more  fully  than  any  of  the  others,  surveyed  the 
whole  field,  and  expounded  with  a  masterly  hand  the  extent 
to  which  the  American  Revolution  had  introduced  new  powers 
and  forces  and  aims  into  the  political  world,  and  how  the 
daring  conceptions  of  the  founders  of  the  Government  had 
been  justified  by  the  actual  working  of  their  experiment.  Dr. 
Storrs  traced  in  American  history  the  growth  of  the  great 
principles  of  English  liberty;  and  Mr.  Winthrop  sketched  and 
eulogized  the  chief  authors  and  promoters  of  the  national  inde- 
pendence; while  Mr.  Adams  showed  by  specific  instances  the 
value  of  the  contributions  which  the  working  out  of  the 
principle  of  personal  freedom  as  maintained  in  the  Revolu- 
tion had  made  to  the  happiness  of  the  civilized  world  in  our 
day,  in  leading  to  the  present  condition  of  France,  in  securing 
the  freedom  of  the  seas,  in  abolishing  piracy,  and  in  bringing 
about  the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade,  and  then  of  slavery  it- 
self. It  was  noteworthy,  too,  and  perhaps  the  most  noteworthy 
illustration  of  the  beneficence  of  the  Revolution,  that  in  none 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    127 

of  the  addresses  is  there  a  single  expression  of  vindictive  or 
arrogant  feeling,  a  single  note  of  barbarous  triumph,  or  a  single 
attempt  to  glorify  force  or  war,  or  to  preach  the  gospel  of 
selfishness.  They  all  tell  the  nations  of  the  world  the  story  of 
joys  and  hopes  in  which  Englishmen,  Germans,  Russians,  and 
Frenchmen  may  share  without  finding  their  pride  or  their 
patriotism  wounded,  or  anything  in  which  they  glory  belittled. 

The  article  closed  with  this  admonition : 

The  hope  and  aim,  secret  or  open,  of  all  who  have  passion- 
ately and  fruitfully  labored  and  endured  for  public  ends  has 
always  been  not  so  much  that  any  one  form  of  government 
should  succeed  as  that  good  government  should  endure;  and 
if  this  generation  is  to  prove  worthy  of  those  who  have  pre- 
pared the  way  for  it,  and  faithful  to  those  who  are  to  come 
after,  it  will  not  be  satisfied  with  "government  of  the  people, 
for  the  people,  by  the  people,"  unless  that  government  is  a 
really  progressive  and  improving  government.  And  a  progres- 
sive and  improving  government  is  not  one  which  every  year 
covers  a  wider  area  with  its  laws  and  makes  large  additions  to 
its  population.  Nor  is  it  even  a  government  under  which  each 
generation  clings  to  its  nationality  with  a  more  passionate  and 
proud  affection.  These  things  have  all  been  seen  under  govern- 
ments whose  subjects  paid  for  the  glory  of  their  flag  and  the 
spread  of  their  sway  by  the  sacrifice  of  their  highest  ideals, 
the  blunting  of  their  moral  perceptions,  and  the  increase  of 
public  misery.  Government  is  not  an  emblem,  or  a  name,  or 
an  army  with  banners.  It  is  a  bundle  of  mutual  services;  and 
its  goodness  or  badness,  and  the  value  of  its  contributions  to 
the  moral  growth  of  the  world,  depend  on  the  efficiency  with 
which  they  are  rendered.  Unless  we  are  supplying  the  poor 
and  rich  with  better  justice;  unless  we  are  striving  to  make 
taxation  lighter  and  its  collection  simpler  and  easier;  unless  we 
are  discovering  modes  of  making  the  execution  of  all  the  laws 


128    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

more  efficient  and  more  certain  —  of  taking  better  care  of  the 
poor  and  the  insane  —  of  giving  the  young  a  better  education 
—  of  bringing  the  highest  intelligence  of  the  community  to 
bear  on  its  legislation  and  administration  —  of  enabling  the 
weak  and  unlearned  to  feel  surer  about  the  future  —  of  making 
firmer  the  hold  of  the  frugal  on  their  savings  —  of  making  mar- 
riage a  more  honorable  and  sacred  relation  and  children  a  more 
solemn  responsibility,  —  all  that  we  heard  on  Tuesday  of  the 
novelty  of  the  success  of  our  political  system  was  reproach 
and  not  glory.  It  will  seem,  after  all,  a  small  thing,  three  hun- 
dred years  hence,  to  have  founded  a  government  without  kings 
or  aristocracy.  The  question  the  world  will  then  ask  will  be, 
not  where  did  we  lodge  the  sovereignty,  or  what  new  hopes  did 
we  kindle,  but  what  valuable  additions  did  we  make  to  the 
art  of  living  in  society.  That  we  have  made  many  there  is  no 
denying;  but  there  have  been  signs  of  late  that  some  among  us 
think  we  may  rest  and  be  thankful,  and  that  we  have  done 
enough  for  the  world  in  making  a  durable  republic.  The  truth 
is  that  no  nation  is  under  such  weighty  obligations  as  ours  to 
make  constant  and  steady  improvement  in  every  branch  of 
political  machinery. 

The  Hayes-Tilden  Campaign 

During  the  Hayes-Tilden  campaign  the  Nation  held 
the  scales  pretty  evenly  between  the  two  candidates. 
When,  on  the  face  of  the  returns,  Hayes  had  received  185 
votes,  the  three  disputed  States  being  counted  in  his 
favor,  and  Tilden  also  had  185  votes,  through  the  count- 
ing of  one  disputed  vote  from  Oregon,  the  Nation  viewed 
the  situation  as  follows : 

What  the  public  is  now  most  interested  in  [it  said,  December 
14]  is  the  election  of  somebody  in  a  manner  that  will  command 
general  confidence.  A  technical  victory  would  therefore  do  the 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    129 

Democrats  no  good.  They  would  have  no  popular  support  in 
trying  to  force  the  Senate  to  count  a  vote  cast  by  a  person 
who  was  plainly  not  elected  by  a  majority  of  votes  in  his 
State,  and  in  the  event  of  a  deadlock  they  would  therefore  be 
sure  to  be  defeated;  nor,  if  successful,  can  Tilden  afford  to  take 
office  on  such  a  vote.  No  man  can  afford  to  take  the  Presi- 
dency on  any  quirk  or  quibble,  or  in  virtue  of  any  merely 
technical  rule. 

If  the  practice  of  going  behind  the  returns  be  estab- 
lished, the  Nation  argued,  there  was  probably  an  end  to 
decisive  and  orderly  elections,  and  every  close  election 
would  be  disputed  before  Congress  met. 

The  wisest  course  for  the  Democrats  and  everybody  [it  said] 
is  to  allow  Hayes  to  take  the  Presidency  quietly  and  without 
further  dispute  on  the  4th  of  March  next.  This  will  doubtless 
be  a  very  unpalatable  course  to  those  who  cannot  afford  to 
wait  four  years  more  for  another  such  chance  as  apparently 
now  offers  itself  to  them;  but  the  country  desires  law  and 
order  and  certainty,  and  does  not  now  particularly  care  who  is 
President,  provided  there  is  general  acquiescence  in  his  acces- 
sion. We  do  not  ourselves  see  how  Mr.  Hayes  can,  if  he  be  the 
man  he  has  been  represented,  take  the  place  under  the  circum- 
stances, but  that  is  a  matter  between  himself  and  his  own 
conscience,  and  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  he  will 
make  a  good  President.  It  is  a  great  misfortune  for  the  country 
to  have  any  man  hold  the  Presidency  by  a  disputed  title,  but 
the  continuance  of  disputes  is  a  worse  one.  People  desire  tran- 
quillity, and  will  punish  whatever  wrong-doing  there  may  be 
now  at  the  next  election,  in  the  regular  constitutional  way, 
and  not  by  threats  and  vituperation.  .  .  . 

What  is  worst  in  the  situation  is,  that  owing  to  the  character 
of  the  men  who  were  allowed  to  conduct  Mr.  Hayes's  canvass 
and  the  course  affairs  have  taken  at  the  South,  there  is  a  strong 


130    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

suspicion  abroad,  which  it  will  be  hard  to  allay,  and  in  fact 
which  Mr.  Hayes  will  have  to  "live  down,"  not  only  that  he 
is  profiting  by  the  doings  of  the  Returning  Boards,  but  that 
those  doings  were  part  of  a  plan  long  prepared,  and  that 
when  Chandler  assured  the  Republican  papers  on  the  mornings 
of  the  8th  and  9th  December  that  Hayes  was  surely  elected, 
although  no  fresh  figures  had  come  in,  and  Tilden  had  appar- 
ent majorities,  and  intimidation  had  still  to  be  proved,  he 
(Chandler)  was  relying  on  the  excellence  of  his  own  arrange- 
ments rather  than  on  his  knowledge  of  facts.  He  apparently 
knew  that  there  had  been  just  intimidation  enough  to  give 
Hayes  small  majorities.  We  hope  this  may  prove  a  lesson  in 
the  value  of  character  in  managers  in  these  times.  The  Chair- 
man of  the  Republican  National  Committee  ought  to  be  a 
man  whom  nobody  would  suspect  of  such  things  for  a  mo- 
ment. But  the  time  to  punish  whatever  underhand  dealing 
there  has  been  is  in  1880.  It  seems  to  us  that  the  only  sound 
course  now  is  to  stop  quibbling  and  chopping  logic,  to  accept 
the  Southern  figures,  however  bedeviled,  and  inaugurate 
Hayes  in  the  interest  of  peace  and  quiet,  and  for  the  better 
preservation  of  constitutional  forms.  Any  other  course  is 
Mexican. 


1877 

The  Decision  of  the  Electoral  Commission 

The  Nation  regarded  the  decision  of  the  Electoral 
Commission  as  unfortunate,  because,  although  it  gave 
Mr.  Hayes  a  sufficient  title  to  the  Presidency,  it  did  not 
give  the  title  for  which  the  country  hoped. 

The  circumstances  under  which  Mr.  Hayes  takes  the  Presi- 
dency [said  the  Nation,  February  22]  greatly  deepen  his  re- 
sponsibility.   He  has  to  shoulder  one  burden  from  which  we 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    131 

had  hoped  that  the  Commission  would  deliver  the  successful 
candidate.  His  very  success  as  an  administrator  will  be  re- 
gretted by  many  good  men  as  likely  to  cheat  people  into  for- 
getfulness  of,  or  indifference  to,  the  mode  in  which  he  has 
obtained  his  seat.  This  will  be  hard  to  bear,  and  is  something 
which  many  a  sensitive  man  would  find  intolerable,  but  it  as 
well  as  the  other  unpleasantnesses  of  the  position  has  now  to 
be  faced  and  lived  through  and  lived  down.  He  has  no  alterna- 
tive but  to  serve,  and  to  serve  as  ably  as  he  can.  Against  this 
questioning  of  his  title  and  this  fear  that  his  election  may 
prove  an  evil  precedent,  he  will  be  able  to  oppose  the  great 
opportunity  presented  to  him  of  showing  the  country  that  the 
disorders,  corruptions,  and  abuses  of  the  last  eight  years  are 
but  sequelae  of  the  Civil  War,  which  need  not  and  will  not 
permanently  befoul  the  stream  of  our  politics,  and  that  even 
four  years  of  honest  and  efficient  government  will  not  only 
cause  people  to  forget  the  tricks  of  the  Returning  Boards,  but 
make  the  repetition  of  those  tricks  impossible.  He  has  it  in 
his  power,  too,  to  accomplish  a  most  beneficent  revolution  at 
the  South  by  bringing  the  blacks  and  whites  into  natural 
and  pleasant  political  relations,  and  helping  to  rid  the  mind 
of  the  poor  negroes  of  the  notion  that  they  are  able  to  carry 
on  complicated  governments  of  great  commercial  States  by 
the  aid  of  corrupt  adventurers  from  other  communities,  and 
by  drawing  off  the  attention  of  the  whites  from  the  ancient 
and  stultifying  study  of  negro  character  to  the  loftier  problems 
of  national  politics.  Apropos  of  this,  we  must  express  the  hope 
that  General  Grant  will  not  suffer  himself  to  be  tempted  by  any 
of  his  following  into  recognizing  either  of  the  contending 
parties  in  South  Carolina  or  Louisiana  in  the  last  week  of  his 
Administration.  The  duty  of  settling  those  imbroglios  falls 
with  the  responsibility  to  Mr.  Hayes,  who  will  readily  see 
that  the  decision  of  the  Electoral  Commission  as  to  his  own 
title  settles  nothing  as  to  the  title  of  Packard  or  Chamberlain. 


132    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

The  Commission  has  simply  refused  to  enquire  whether  the 
State  Returning  Boards  have  acted  honestly  or  not,  but  has 
not  decided  that  they  have  acted  honestly. 

Civil-Service  Reform  Near  at  Hand 

When  President  Hayes  had  been  three  months  in 
office,  the  Nation  feared  that  he  would  be  perplexed  by 
the  very  problem  which  confronted  General  Grant  in 
1869. 

The  excitement  and  eclat  of  his  first  uses  of  power  are  over 
[the  Nation  said,  in  its  issue  of  June  14].  He  has  surrounded 
himself  with  advisers  of  his  own  choosing,  and  he  has  carried 
out  a  certain  view  of  his  legal  duty  at  the  South  with  singular 
success,  and  he  is  waiting  to  see  what  the  result  will  be,  in  the 
first  place,  as  regards  the  restoration  of  order  and  prosperity 
at  the  South,  and,  in  the  next,  as  regards  the  feeling  of  the 
party  which  elected  him  at  the  North.  The  moment  has  come, 
in  short,  in  which  the  native  hue  of  virtuous  resolution  is 
" sicklied  o 'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought."  There  are  plenty 
to  tell  him,  in  that  curious  Washington  isolation  into  which 
Presidents  so  soon  find  themselves  thrust,  that  whatever  the 
abstract  merit  of  his  Southern  policy,  its  practical  effects  are 
likely  to  be  very  bad;  that  there  is  widespread  discontent  with 
it  in  the  ranks  of  the  "great  party,"  and  that  unless  something 
is  done  it  will  be  badly  defeated  at  the  next  State  election,  and 
worse  still  at  the  following  ones,  and  he  will  leave  the  White 
House  with  the  reputation  of  having  destroyed  the  noble 
organization  which  saved  the  Union  and  put  him  in  the  Presi- 
dential chair;  and  that  the  only  thing  to  be  done  now  is  to 
conciliate  and  restore  "  harmony  "  by  a  judicious  use  of  patron- 
age. In  trying  to  account  for  the  influence  of  this  kind  of  talk 
on  the  Presidential  mind  —  for  it  has  its  influence  on  the  minds 
of  all  Presidents  —  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  friends  of 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    133 

reform  are  apt  to  stay  at  home  and  read  the  newspapers,  vote, 
and  attend  to  their  private  affairs,  while  those  who  are  inter- 
ested in  the  perpetration  of  abuses  and  the  perpetuation  of  the 
"machine"  are  great  travellers  and  interviewers  and  letter- 
writers,  and  have  a  prodigious  gift  of  political  prophecy.  It  is 
they  who  frequent  Washington,  and  haunt  the  White  House, 
and  write  remonstrances  to  the  President  about  the  effects  of 
this  and  that  act  on  "the  party,"  and  who  put  him  up  to  the 
various  little  devices  by  which  a  well-disposed  post-office  or 
appraisership  may  be  made  to  save  the  results  of  the  war,  and 
postpone  indefinitely  the  accession  of  the  wicked  to  power. 

If  President  Hayes  hesitates  at  this  juncture  he  is  lost.  All 
that  the  use  of  patronage  can  do  for  the  party  has  been  done. 
That  mode  of  salvation  was  fully  tried  under  Grant,  and  it  was 
not  successful.  Four  years  more  of  it  will  certainly  destroy 
whatever  of  vitality  there  was  left  in  the  organization.  The 
way  to  meet  whatever  discontent  has  been  excited  among  the 
bigoted,  or  ignorant,  or  narrow-minded,  or  scheming,  by  the 
restoration  of  two  Southern  States  to  the  custody  of  the  only 
portion  of  the  population  which  is  able  to  carry  on  a  govern- 
ment, is  to  appeal  to  what  is  now  the  strongest  political  senti- 
ment in  the  country,  and  that  is  the  desire  for  purity  of  admin- 
istration, or,  in  other  words,  for  the  conduct  of  the  Government 
in  all  its  branches  by  honest  men  on  business  principles.  This 
is  a  field  which  no  Administration  has  yet  tried  to  cultivate. 
President  Hayes,  in  his  letter  of  acceptance,  solemnly  pledged 
himself  to  cultivate  it.  He  did  not  say,  for  instance,  that  he 
would  see  that  the  civil  service  was  used  as  an  eleemosynary 
institution  to  comfort  the  widows  and  the  fatherless,  because 
he  was  aware  that  this  is  no  more  the  business  of  the  Govern- 
ment than  of  railroads  or  banks,  or  to  provide  a  refuge  for 
unsuccessful  persons  or  bankrupts  because  he  knew  that  it 
would  be  dishonest  to  use  the  money  of  taxpayers  for  any  such 
purpose  without  their  consent;  or  to  provide  a  living  for  Con- 


134    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

gressmen  or  Senators  who  have  lost  their  seats,  because  the 
loss  of  their  seats  is  a  distinct  and  formal  indication,  which  he 
would  not  be  at  liberty  to  disregard,  that  their  proper  place 
is  private  life;  or  as  a  mark  of  esteem  for  or  gratitude  to  his 
own  friends,  because  this  would  be  the  use  of  a  public  trust  to 
serve  personal  ends;  or  as  a  means  of  soothing  the  ambition  or 
procuring  the  support  of  particular  classes  of  the  voters  by 
giving  them  "representation"  in  it,  knowing  well  that  it  is  not 
and  ought  not  to  be  a  representative  body  at  all,  and  that 
neither  Irish,  German,  African,  nor  Malay  descent  can  give 
one  man  a  better  claim  to  a  place  in  it  than  another.  What  he 
did  say  was  that  he  would  make  "a  thorough,  radical,  and 
complete"  reform  in  it,  and  by  this  he  meant  that  he  would 
see  that  the  employees  of  the  Government  were  selected  by 
the  same  rules  and  motives,  and  held  office  by  the  same  tenure 
as  those  —  to  use  the  language  of  the  Custom-house  Com- 
mission —  of  "a  prudent  merchant." 

Our  Mexican  Troubles 

The  outbreak  of  conflicts  between  settlers  on  the 
border  line  of  Mexico  and  Texas,  though  of  intrinsically 
slight  importance,  occasioned  a  revival  of  annexation 
schemes.  The  origin  of  the  troubles  was  thus  summar- 
ized in  the  Nation  of  December  27: 

Between  the  geographically  Texan  but  intrinsically  Mexican 
town  of  San  Elizario,  not  far  from  the  line  of  New  Mexico,  and 
the  abandoned  but  to  be  restored  Fort  Quitman,  lie  extensive 
salt  marshes  which  for  all  historic  time  have  been  common 
property,  where  all  the  farmers  and  rancheros  on  both  sides  of 
the  river  freely  gathered  all  the  salt  they  required.  Lately 
some  enterprising  speculators  took  up  the  land  from  the  State 
in  the  usual  manner,  and  now  charge  a  "royalty"  of  a  dollar 
or  some  smaller  sum  per  wagon-load.  This  has  occasioned  con- 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    135 

flicts  between  the  owners  and  the  incensed  and  saltless  people, 
some  of  whom  come  from  the  neighboring  Mexican  State  of 
Chihuahua,  but  much  the  larger  part  are  residents  of  San 
Elizario  and  vicinity  on  our  side,  the  population  there  being 
to  a  large  extent  of  Mexican  birth,  and  having  little  regard 
either  for  the  laws  of  the  United  States  or  for  any  law  what- 
ever. 

The  remarks  of  the  Nation  as  to  the  character  of  the 
population  in  those  troubled  regions  are  not  without  per- 
tinency at  the  present  time : 

The  fact  is  that  the  boundary  river  makes  no  sharp  division  of 
the  real  nationality  or  habits  of  the  population.  The  "greaser" 
is  common  on  the  hither  side,  and  the  bandit  chief  Cortina  could 
not  be  successful  in  his  raids  if  there  were  not  many  in  con- 
nivance with  him  who  profess  to  be  citizens  of  the  United 
States  and  give  him  aid,  comfort,  and,  when  necessary,  con- 
cealment, within  the  belt  between  the  great  river  and  the 
cattle-raising  counties.  State  troops  of  Texas,  if  relied  upon 
for  police  purposes,  might  be  composed  of  many  in  league  with 
the  bandits,  as  is  alleged  of  the  soldiers  of  modern  Greece,  or 
might  be  confined  to  the  so-called  "American"  element  in 
Texas,  smarting  under  personal  loss,  hating  the  Mexican  with 
hereditary  rancor,  and  anxious  to  make  reprisals  on  any  one 
on  either  side  of  the  line  who  should  be  found  guilty  of  speak- 
ing Spanish.  Nothing  can  secure  tranquillity  and  order  but  a 
respectable  force  of  our  regular  army,  with  officers  and  men 
free  alike  from  the  heat  of  revenge  and  schemes  for  loot.  An- 
nexation will  not  remove  the  necessity  for  such  an  armed  force, 
for  if  Tamaulipas  were  to-day,  with  all  peace  and  quietness,  an 
American  instead  of  a  Mexican  state,  the  character  of  the 
people  would  require  for  many  years  a  large  army  of  occupa- 
tion, as  there  is  no  magic  in  the  Stars  and  Stripes  that  will 
reform  a  community  of  cattle  thieves;    and  our  statesmen 


136    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

should  ponder  well  the  fact  that  an  addition  to  the  territory 
of  our  Republic  gives  us  so  many  more  masters  instead  of 
subjects. 


1878 

The  Mind  and  Manners  of  the  Silver-Man 

The  Nation,  because  of  its  views  on  the  silver  question, 
was  severely  taken  to  task  by  a  prominent  Chicago  paper 
as  most  "insolent,  most  vituperative,  most  truth-defying, 
extravagant,  and  vulgar,"  etc.  This  outburst  led  the 
Nation  to  muse  on  the  mind  and  the  manners  of  the 
silver-man. 

His  condition  [it  said,  February  7]  is  rapidly  becoming  as 
forlorn  as  that  of  the  poor  Granger,  of  whom  we  heard  so  much 
three  or  four  years  ago.  At  first  it  was  only  by  the  railroads 
that  that  godly  man  was  afflicted;  but  when  he  got  time  to 
examine  himself  closely,  he  found  that  almost  every  class  in 
the  community  was  armed  against  him  and  preying  upon  him. 
His  principal  enemy  was,  of  course,  the  unspeakable  villains 
who  lent  him  money  and  took  his  note;  then  came  the  villains 
who  carried  him  and  his  crops  to  market;  then  those  who  bought 
his  corn  and  pork;  and,  finally,  the  grocers  and  dry-goods  men 
and  piano  men,  and  in  fact  everybody  who  sold  him  anything. 
Lastly,  he  fell  foul  of  the  judges  who  sat  on  his  disputes,  and 
he  used  to  foot  up  piteously  the  amount  of  land  it  took  to 
maintain  a  judge.  His  sorrows  grew  every  day,  and  he  cursed 
and  swore  and  wailed,  and  got  his  newspapers  to  curse  and 
swear  and  wail  with  him,  and  pretend  that  if  somebody  did  not 
hold  him  or  pacify  him  he  would  bury  himself  and  at  least  one 
branch  of  the  human  family  in  red  ruin.  After  a  while,  finding 
that  the  world  was  getting  tired  of  him,  he  began  to  laugh,  and 
now  pretends  that  it  was  all  a  joke,  but  a  useful  joke,  for  he 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    137 

says  it  frightened  "the  monopolists"  and  compelled  them  to 
carry  him  at  the  usual  extortionate  rates. 

The  sorry  wag  has  now  appeared  as  the  Silver-man,  and  is 
threatening  us  with  the  same  dissolution  of  the  Social  Bond 
with  which  he  threatened  us  as  a  Granger.  What  is  troubling 
him  now  is  the  "Money  Power,"  which  he  never  mentions 
without  that  wild  look  in  his  eye  with  which  all  those  are 
familiar  who  have  heard  a  Belleville  orator  denouncing  "la 
Reaction."  He  was  ranting  about  it  in  Washington  the  other 
day  in  the  presence  of  a  cold  and  bloodless  "gold  sharp,"  who 
after  listening  a  good  while  to  his  eloquence,  asked  him  with 
brutal  abruptness,  "What  is  the  Money  Power,  anyhow?" 
The  strange  light  forsook  his  eyes  on  hearing  this,  and  his  jaw 
fell.  After  an  awkward  and  reflective  pause,  he  said,  "Well, 
it 's  the  darned  fellows  that  won't  buy  your  property  at  your 
own  price."  If  there  be  one  thing  more  than  another  which 
irritates  him,  it  is  opposition.  He  does  n't  allow  himself  to  be 
whistled  down  the  wind  by  "the  bookman"  and  "the  theo- 
rists." Anybody  who  differs  from  the  people  of  his  village  he 
thinks  a  stuck-up  jackanapes,  and  the  experience  of  "abroad" 
in  a  matter  of  finance  he  listens  to  with  the  same  sort  of  feeling 
with  which  he  would  listen  to  Sir  John  Lubbock's  lectures  on 
the  manners  and  customs  of  the  ants.  He  will  not  admit  that 
anybody  knows  more  on  any  subjcet  than  any  one  else.  As 
American  citizens,  he  says,  living  under  equal  laws,  our  knowl- 
edge is  equal  in  quality  and  amount.  It  is  only  in  monarchies 
that  one  man  knows  more  than  another. 

Nothing  about  him,  however,  is  more  curious  and  mysterious 
than  his  state  of  mind  touching  his  beloved  dollar.  His  fond- 
ness for  it  because  it  is  "cheap"  —  that  is,  because  it  is  a 
feeble  dollar,  which  cannot  purchase  much  or  do  much  of  the 
work  of  exchange  —  seems  to  indicate  that  he  loves  it  as  a 
mother  loves  a  crippled  child,  because  of  its  very  helplessness 
and  incapacity.   But  this  theory  is  upset  by  the  fact  that  he 


138    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

not  only  likes  it  cheap  but  small,  for  any  proposal  to  enlarge 
it,  such  as  Senator  Christiancy's  to  raise  it  to  434  grains  —  that 
is,  to  make  it  a  big,  handsome  dollar  —  fills  him  with  fury, 
and  makes  him  curse  and  call  names.  We  begin  to  hear  abuse 
of  the  Senator  now  in  every  Western  breeze,  thus  showing 
that  the  maternal-instinct  hypothesis  must  be  abandoned. 
The  same  facts  militate  against  the  idea  that  he  loves  silver 
as  the  money  of  Scripture  and  as  a  great  American  mineral, 
for  if  he  did  so  he  would  want  to  put  as  much  of  it  as  possible 
into  his  dollars  in  order  to  "pay  his  debts"  —  a  process  of 
which  he  is  passionately  fond  —  and  in  order  to  export  it  to 
the  downtrodden  nations  of  Europe.  But  he  is  utterly  opposed 
to  anything  of  the  kind.  His  plan  is  to  use  as  little  silver  as 
possible,  a  circumstance  which  has  given  rise  in  these  parts  to 
the  odious  suspicion  that  he  is  really  a  knave.  This,  of  course, 
makes  him  very  indignant,  and  he  says  that  if  anybody  sug- 
gests this  much  oftener  he  will  not  even  use  silver  to  pay  his 
debts.  He  will  shield  himself  from  these  cruel  insinuations  by 
not  paying  them  at  all. 

Resumption 

When  the  resumption  of  specie  payments  was  an  ac- 
complished fact,  the  Nation  commented  on  the  fluctua- 
tions of  public  opinion  that  preceded  it,  and  remarked 
that  a  history  of  the  subject  would  illustrate  the  great 
difficulty  in  bringing  the  experience  of  mankind  to  bear 
on  legislation. 

Every  debate  in  Congress  [it  said,  December  26]  touching  the 
currency  since  1862  contains  several  speeches  in  which  there  is 
no  trace  of  knowledge  that  any  experiments  in  money  had  been 
tried  before  our  time,  or  that  any  nation  had  wrestled  before  us 
with  the  problems  we  had  to  solve.  Many  more,  while  exhibit- 
ing this  knowledge,  treat  it  as  of  no  value,  and  deal  with  the 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS     139 

whole  matter  on  the  assumption  that  the  people  of  the  United 
States  are  a  "chosen  people,"  who  need  not  pay  one  hundred 
cents  on  the  dollar  if  they  do  not  wish  to  do  so.  We  all  remem- 
ber how  rapidly  the  theory  grew  up  that  in  the  greenbacks  we 
had  stumbled,  by  a  happy  accident,  on  a  new  mode  of  acquiring 
wealth  and  avoiding  financial  convulsions,  and  how  rapidly,  as 
the  years  went  by,  the  remembrance  that  they  were  ever  looked 
on  as  promissory  notes  began  to  fade,  and  how  rapidly,  too,  in 
many  minds,  they  began  to  wear  the  air  of  weapons  of  war,  like 
a  grandfather's  sword  or  musket,  hallowed  by  associations,  and 
unfit  subjects  for  scientific  examination  or  treatment.  In  fact, 
there  is  hardly  any  species  of  delusion  or  aberration  about 
money,  or  its  nature  or  functions,  which  might  not  be  illustrated 
from  the  legislation  or  articles  and  speeches  of  the  last  seven- 
teen years.  No  matter  in  what  age  they  may  have  worked  ruin, 
or  in  what  condition  of  darkness  or  ignorance  they  may  last 
have  appeared,  or  how  long  it  may  have  been  since  they  were 
buried,  out  they  came  in  the  fierce  light  of  American  politics, 
and  stalked  about  calmly  under  the  fire  of  thousands  of  news- 
papers, pamphlets,  and  sermons. 

The  story  is  interesting,  too,  perhaps  most  interesting,  as  an 
illustration  of  the  way  in  which  under  a  popular  government 
the  rational,  reflective,  remembering  element  in  society  pro- 
tects itself  and  civilization  against  folly  and  ignorance.  The 
combat  is  carried  on,  not  by  compact  battalions,  bearing  down 
everything  by  sheer  weight  and  volume,  but  by  swarms  of 
skirmishers,  each  pegging  away  from  whatever  position  he 
deems  best,  now  advancing  and  now  retiring,  as  the  nature  of 
the  ground  may  dictate,  but  all  the  while  keeping  up  a  steady 
fire,  sometimes  on  a  visible  but  more  frequently  on  an  invisible 
enemy,  and  for  the  most  part  without  knowing  until  near  the 
end  what  impression  has  been  made.  It  may  be  said,  in  truth, 
that  the  victory  in  this  case  has  been  almost  wholly  due  not  to 
any  political  party  or  to  any  body  of  financiers,  but  to  the  un- 


140    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

faltering  exertions  of  newspapers  and  ministers,  acting  without 
concert  and  addressing  audiences  which  might,  for  the  most 
part,  be  called  hap-hazard.  As  a  general  rule,  throughout  the 
whole  country,  the  ministers  in  all  discourses  in  which  they 
touched  on  public  affairs  (and  such  discourses  recur  now  with 
increasing  frequency)  have  treated  financial  heresies  as  a  form 
of  sin  —  as,  in  fact,  disguised  attempts  to  cheat,  and  thus 
helped  greatly  to  keep  the  steadiest-going  and  most  influential 
portion  of  the  population  sound  on  the  main  question.  As  a 
general  rule,  too,  the  qualities  which  made  men  editors  or  pro- 
prietors of  leading  newspapers  kept  their  heads  clear  on  the  cur- 
rency question,  and  enabled  them  to  pursue  with  unsparing  vigor 
the  various  fallacies  which  made  their  appearance  in  it.  With- 
out the  powerful,  subtle,  and  all-pervading  opposition  which 
emanated  from  these  two  sources  to  schemes  of  folly  or  knav- 
ery, it  is  all  but  certain  that  the  active  politicians  of  both  part- 
ies would  early  in  the  struggle  have  tried  some  huge  financial 
experiment  which  would  have  ended  in  wreck  and  repudiation. 


1879 

Some  Noteworthy  Facts  about  the  Forty-Fifth  Congress 

In  reviewing  the  work  of  the  Forty-Fifth  Congress,  the 
Nation  [March  6]  called  attention  to  the  loosening  of 
party  ties  as  expressed  in  the  vote  on  many  important 
questions. 

For  many  years  after  the  foundation  of  the  Government  [it 
said],  —  indeed,  down  to  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  —  parties 
were  divided,  roughly,  it  is  true,  but  still  with  sufficient  dis- 
tinctness to  enable  one  to  predict  the  ground  they  would  take 
on  most  Federal  questions,  by  their  manner  of  interpreting  the 
Constitution,  whether  loosely  or  strictly.  If  either  Democrats 
or  Republicans  of  to-day  inherited  the  traditions  of  their  politi- 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    141 

cal  ancestors,  we  should  be  able  to  say  with  certainty  what 
course  either  party  would  pursue  with  regard  to  the  paper- 
money  question,  the  silver  question,  the  pension  question,  the 
Chinese  question,  and  the  army  question,  or  any  other  question 
which  has  been  prominently  before  the  public  during  the  last 
two  years.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  nothing  in  the  history  of  parties 
would  have  foreshadowed  any  important  vote  of  the  late 
Congress. 

It  found  resumption  on  a  certain  day  provided  for  by  its  pre- 
decessor, but  it  had  no  sooner  met  than  desperate  attempts  to 
repeal  the  Act  were  made,  which  were  supported  by  large  bodies 
of  both  Republicans  and  Democrats,  the  only  difference  being 
that  the  Democrats  contributed  the  larger  contingent  to  the 
attack,  and  the  credit  of  defeating  it  was  in  like  manner  shared 
by  both.  Efforts  to  revive  the  income  tax  and  revise  the  tariff 
were  supported  and  defeated,  in  like  manner,  by  votes  drawn 
from  both  sides  indiscriminately,  with  little  or  no  regard  to 
party  platforms.  The  Silver  Bill  was  passed  by  an  overwhelm- 
ing majority  of  both  parties,  though  its  avowed  object  —  the 
inflation  of  the  currency  and  the  cheating  of  the  public  creditor 
—  was  one  against  which  the  Republicans  were  solemnly 
pledged.  The  Bankrupt  Law  was  repealed  also  by  an  indiscrim- 
inate vote.  The  Electoral  Coimt  Bill,  introduced  by  Mr. 
Edmunds,  was  passed  in  the  Senate  by  the  aid  of  Democratic 
votes,  but  in  the  House  neither  side  has  deigned  to  pay  much 
attention  to  it,  and  the  time  for  calm  legislation  on  the  subject 
may  be  said  now  to  have  all  but  passed  by.  Both  sides  profess 
to  be  in  favor  of  strict  economy,  but  both  joined  in  passing 
by  overwhelming  majorities  the  Arrears  of  Pensions  Bill,  the 
Democrats  indifferent  to  the  fact  that  it  takes  $27,000,000  out 
of  the  Treasury,  and  the  Republicans  to  the  fact  that  it  may 
give  the  inflationists  a  weapon  to  use  against  the  permanence 
of  resumption.  The  payment  of  the  Fisheries  Award  was  op- 
posed by  Republicans  and  supported  by  Democrats  without 


142    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

any  reference,  apparently,  to  party  traditions  or  associations. 
Strangest  of  all,  the  Chinese  Bill,  which  seemed  to  be  more 
distinctly  than  any  measure  which  has  come  before  Congress 
in  recent  times  hostile  to  the  fundamental  principles  of  the 
Republicans,  was  passed  by  a  powerful  combination  of  both 
parties,  the  leader  in  its  support  being  the  noisiest  Republican 
agitator  now  to  be  found  in  public  life.  It  is  not  surprising,  in 
view  of  all  these  things,  that  neither  party  should  have  steadily 
supported  or  opposed  the  Administration.  It  has  been  helped 
and  hindered  by  both  indiscriminately,  it  would  be  hard  to  say 
with  what  view  or  by  what  rule.  Its  bitterest  assailants  have 
sometimes  been  Republicans  who  were  moving  heaven  and 
earth  to  elect  Mr.  Hayes  in  1876,  as  a  person  who  would  go 
far  to  regenerate  American  society,  and  its  warmest  support- 
ers have  sometimes  been  Democrats  who  have  denounced  it 
as  the  product  of  the  blackest  fraud  of  "this  or  any  other  age." 

All  this,  the  Nation  argued,  promised  to  make  the  task 
of  the  conscientious  voter  a  troublesome  one  in  the  com- 
ing Presidential  election. 

Looseness  of  opinion  on  all  questions  except  the  condition 
of  the  South  —  or,  in  other  words,  the  only  great  question 
of  the  day  which  seems  beyond  the  reach  of  specific  legislation 
—  has  been  deliberately  fostered  on  the  Republican  side  dur- 
ing the  whole  session,  and  the  Democrats  have  on  their  part 
avoided  any  attempt  to  deal  with  Southern  troubles  beyond 
removing  any  hindrances  which  Republican  legislation  may 
have  placed  in  the  way  of  white  supremacy.  There  has  not 
been  on  either  side  the  sign  of  an  honest  attempt  to  reach  a 
lasting  solution  of  a  problem  which  is  fast  becoming  the  re- 
proach of  American  politics.  Nearly  everything  which  has 
been  said  or  done  with  this  air,  or  apparent  design,  has  been 
really  a  device  for  entrapping  the  enemy  into  some  damaging 
vote  or  admission. 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    143 

1880 

General  Garfield  and  the  Bosses 

On  the  election  of  General  Garfield  to  the  Presidency, 
the  Nation  asked :  "What  ought  a  President  of  the  United 
States  to  seek  in  order  to  signalize  his  administration 
before  his  contemporaries  and  posterity?" 

It  would  be  idle  to  controvert  the  maxim  [it  said,  November 
18]  which  governs  all  politicians,  that  their  first  duty  to  the 
country  is  to  keep  their  own  party  in  power.  General  Garfield 
will,  of  course,  assume  as  his  first  postulate  that  steps  must  be 
taken  which  will  at  least  keep  the  Republican  party  in  the 
majority  hi  as  many  States  as  it  controlled  at  the  last  election. 
The  means  by  which  this  end  can  be  most  certainly  attained 
are  the  chief  subject  of  contention  now,  and  will  continue  to  be 
so  throughout  his  whole  term  of  office.  Intrigues  for  the  next 
nomination  on  the  part  of  various  aspirants  and  cliques  play  a 
large  part  in  the  course  of  events  under  any  administration,  but 
each  aspirant,  like  every  member  of  every  clique,  believes  or 
pretends  to  believe  that  his  aims  are  those  best  fitted  to 
strengthen  the  party  and  maintain  its  supremacy.  In  the  clash- 
ing of  interests  around  this  principal  subject  of  contention  Tom, 
Dick,  and  Harry  can  afford  to  be  mistaken,  because  they  are 
irresponsible  and  frequently  have  nothing  to  lose.  But  the 
President  of  the  United  States  cannot  afford  to  be  mistaken. 
He  is  bound  by  his  higher  standpoint  to  see  farther  than  others, 
as  his  punishment  for  failure  will  be  heavier.  If  he  be  one  of  the 
aspirants  for  the  next  nomination  himself,  still  less  can  he  af- 
ford to  commit  any  serious  error  in  discerning  the  causes  which 
tend  to  strengthen  or  weaken  the  party  in  those  States  where 
its  majority  is  small  and  doubtful,  but  of  the  last  import- 
ance. 


144    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

The  Nation  found  much  encouragement  for  the  future 
in  the  closeness  of  the  vote  in  the  principal  States.  The 
balance  of  power  was  held  by  the  Independents,  and  this 
put  both  parties  on  their  best  behavior.  The  path  that 
lay  before  General  Garfield  seemed  to  be  plain. 

The  Southern  question  [it  said]  is  now  settled  in  such  a  way 
that  there  is  no  possibility  of  unsettling  it  by  any  outside  pres- 
sure or  interference  exerted  from  Washington  City.  If  General 
Garfield  desired  to  pursue  a  different  policy  from  that  of  Presi- 
dent Hayes  he  would  not  know  how  to  begin,  nor  could  any  of 
his  Stalwart  advisers  tell  him  what  to  do.  A  new  regime  of 
troops  at  the  polls,  with  double-headed  legislatures  in  Louisiana 
and  South  Carolina,  would  be  voted  down  by  the  North  at  the 
first  opportunity.  Of  the  two  points  of  essential  difference 
between  the  Grant  and  Hayes  Administrations,  the  only  one 
which  need  greatly  concern  General  Garfield  relates  to  their  re- 
spective methods  of  managing  the  civil  service.  It  is  not  to  be 
affirmed  that  Mr.  Hayes  has  achieved  entire  success  in  this 
branch  of  administration,  but  he  has  given  better  satisfaction 
to  the  country  in  this  particular  than  any  President  since  John 
Quincy  Adams.  President  Lincoln  had  no  chance  to  do  any- 
thing helpful  in  this  regard,  and  he  is  the  only  one  of  our  later 
Presidents  before  Mr.  Hayes  who  can  be  said  to  have  had  the 
mental  and  moral  make-up  to  do  anything  helpful.  The  coun- 
try, during  Mr.  Hayes's  term  of  office,  has  been  brought  to  re- 
gard the  civil  service,  its  administration,  its  mode  of  appoint- 
ment, its  morale,  as  a  subject  of  the  highest  interest.  To  have 
fixed  public  attention  clearly  upon  this  subject  is  a  very  great 
service.  President  Hayes  has  done  something  more;  he  has 
stimulated  a  public  demand  for  a  better  service  and  better 
methods  of  securing  it. 

The  Nation  warned  General  Garfield  against  the  Bosses, 
whose  methods  ever  had  been  to  regard  all  Federal  of- 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    145 

fices  as  the  raw  material  of  train-bands  organized  in  the 
personal  interest  of  Senators  and  Representatives  in  Con- 
gress. Such  was  the  view  taken  by  the  majority  of  the  Re- 
publican Senators  in  the  matter  of  the  New  York  Custom 
House  at  the  beginning  of  the  Hayes  Administration. 

Whatever  General  Garfield  owes  in  return  for  his  election  he 
owes  to  the  Republican  voters  of  the  nation,  to  the  American 
people,  and  not  to  any  clique,  coterie,  or  faction  whatever.  His 
debt  will  be  fully  discharged  if  he  administers  his  office  upon 
this  understanding.  He  can  best  signalize  his  Administration 
before  his  contemporaries  and  in  the  eyes  of  posterity  by  con- 
tinuing and  bettering  the  reform  of  the  civil  service,  and  if  he 
does  so  he  can  in  all  probability  lay  down  a  policy  from  which 
his  own  successor,  whether  four  or  eight  years  hence,  cannot 
easily  depart.  We  can  point  out  to  him  no  better  guide,  so  far 
as  principles  and  their  application  are  concerned,  than  his 
own  public  speeches  in  and  out  of  Congress.  It  is  needless  to 
add  that  the  instrumentalities  are  not  to  be  found  among  the 
Logans,  Camerons,  and  Tom  Platts,  who  are  so  volubly  named 
at  this  juncture  for  members  of  his  Cabinet. 


1881 

President  Arthur  s  Problems 

With  the  rest  of  the  country,  the  Nation  was  disposed 
to  judge  President  Arthur's  Administration  leniently.  It 
was  comparatively  easy  for  him  to  come  up  to  the  general 
expectation.  But  the  Nation  commented  with  consid- 
erable misgivings  on  the  glowing  predictions  of  the 
President's  friends  as  to  his  future  achievements. 

No  reasonable  man  in  the  Presidential  office  [the  Nation  re- 
marked, December  29]  will  permit  the  good-natured  confidence 


146    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

offered  to  the  Administration  during  its  honeymoon  to  delude 
him  into  the  belief  that,  whatever  he  may  do,  he  will  always 
have  the  approval  of  the  public.  The  manner  in  which  Presi- 
dent Arthur's  official  acts  have  been  received  is  in  this  respect 
significant  and  instructive.  His  message  was  greeted  with  gen- 
eral applause,  which  seems  to  indicate  that  on  matters  of  public 
policy,  so  far  as  he  has  pronounced  himself  upon  them,  there  is 
no  vital  disagreement  between  him  and  the  majority  of  the 
people,  especially  if  what  he  said  about  our  foreign  relations 
and  about  the  civil  service  is  construed  in  a  sense  favorable  to 
peace  and  to  reform.  But  it  is  in  the  matter  of  appointments  to 
office  that  trouble  is  looked  for,  and  it  is  characteristic  of  our 
wretched  service  system  that  it  should  be  so.  President  Arthur 
has  made  four  appointments  of  Cabinet  officers,  and  the  criti- 
cism passed  upon  them  —  a  criticism  made,  on  the  whole,  in  a 
very  friendly  spirit  —  points  out  clearly  the  direction  in  which 
the  trouble  lies.  When  the  President  had  filled  the  depart- 
ments of  the  Treasury,  of  State,  and  of  Justice  with  new  men, 
it  was  remarked  that  they  were  all  from  the  same  wing  of  the 
party,  and  that  wing  a  minority.  But  while  this  seemed  of 
doubtful  propriety  from  the  point  of  view  of  party  politics, 
public  opinion  was  evidently  willing  to  take  into  account  the 
fact  that  Mr.  Folger  was  a  prominent  jurist,  of  recognized 
business  capacity,  that  Mr.  Frelinghuysen  was  a  public  man 
of  large  experience  and  a  conservative  spirit,  likely  to  take  us 
safely  through  the  muddles  in  which  we  have  recently  become 
involved,  and  that  Mr.  Brewster  was  a  lawyer  of  high  standing, 
who  could  be  counted  upon  to  push  the  prosecution  of  the  Star- 
route  and  other  frauds  with  vigor,  and  that  therefore  for  these 
appointments  other  reasons  might  be  produced  than  mere  par- 
tisan preference.  Strikingly  different  was  the  expression  of  pub- 
lic judgment  when,  in  the  Post-Office  Department,  the  place 
of  a  public  officer  who  had  achieved  remarkable  success  through 
strict  business  methods,  was  filled  with  a  gentleman  for  whose 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    147 

appointment  no  reason  could  be  given  but  the  desire  of  the 
President  to  revitalize  a  third-term  partisan,  who  had  been  de- 
feated by  the  people  of  his  own  State  just  on  account  of  such 
partisanship.  It  can  scarcely  have  escaped  the  President's 
attention  how  sharply  that  selection  was  criticised  by  a  large 
majority  of  the  Republican  press.  The  lesson  to  be  drawn  from 
this  significant  fact  is,  that  while  there  are  many  citizens  who 
care  very  little  from  what  party  or  faction  a  man  be  taken  to 
do  a  certain  business,  provided  he  be  well  qualified  for  doing  it, 
even  partisans  will  express  their  dissatisfaction  when  men  are 
selected  for  the  performance  of  important  public  duties  for 
merely  partisan  reasons,  without  any  regard  to  their  business 
qualifications. 

It  is  a  matter  of  history  that  the  principal  troubles  of  Admin- 
istrations have  been  about  the  offices,  and  that  their  greatest 
failures  and  most  stinging  disappointments  have  been  caused 
by  attempts  on  their  part  to  accomplish  political  objects  by 
means  of  patronage.  Nothing  could  be  more  instructive  in 
this  respect  than  the  Administrations  of  Mr.  Buchanan  and 
General  Grant.  If,  as  is  thought  by  President  Arthur's  friends 
as  well  as  by  some  of  his  opponents,  it  is  his  purpose  to  turn  the 
old  third-term  or  "Stalwart"  faction,  which  now  forms  only  a 
small  minority  of  the  party,  into  a  majority,  or  to  subjugate  the 
majority  to  it  by  giving  it  all  the  offices,  it  requires  no  gift  of 
prophecy  to  predict  that  he  will  wretchedly  fail  in  his  purpose, 
and  wreck  his  Administration  upon  that  very  point.  The  only 
safe  course  for  any  Administration  under  the  present  state  of 
public  sentiment  is  to  treat  the  offices  of  the  Government  as 
places  of  work,  trust,  and  responsibility,  and  to  select  for  each 
one  the  best  man  available,  in  whatever  party  or  faction  he 
may  be  found.  As  experience,  recent  as  well  as  remote,  shows, 
Administrations  will  impair  their  general  success  in  the  measure 
in  which  they  depart  from  that  principle. 


148    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

1882 

A  "Spirited  Foreign  Policy" 

The  introduction  of  the  Consular  and  Diplomatic  Ap- 
propriation Bill  gave  the  leaders  of  the  Democratic  party 
in  the  House  occasion  for  a  new  departure,  in  the  direc- 
tion of  a  "spirited  foreign  policy."  The  Nation  inquired 
what  kind  of  a  spirited  policy  would  commend  itself  to 
the  good  sense  of  the  American  people. 

If  it  is  one  [it  said,  March  9]  which  will  resent  an  insult  when 
it  is  offered  to  us;  which  will  protect  the  rights  and  safety  of 
American  citizens  abroad  whenever  and  wherever  they  are 
threatened;  which  will  clearly  ascertain  what  our  interests  are, 
and  then  enforce  them  with  justice,  intelligence,  and  dignity; 
which  will  maintain  friendly  relations  with  weaker  states  and 
use  our  influence  for  their  benefit  when  they  call  upon  us  to  do 
so,  and  when  it  can  be  done  without  prejudice  to  their  rights, 
then  we  are  all  agreed.  Such  a  foreign  policy  we  ought  to  have. 
But  when  a  "spirited  foreign  policy"  means  that  we  should 
construe  every  difference  of  opinion  as  an  insult  for  the  purpose 
of  having  something  to  resent;  that  we  should  constantly  carry 
a  chip  on  our  shoulder,  daring  anybody  to  knock  it  off;  that  we 
should  use  every  possible  occasion  to  "twist  the  tail  of  the 
British  lion  "  for  the  fun  of  it;  that  we  should  have  our  finger  in 
every  quarrel  merely  to  make  our  influence  felt,  and  act  the 
universal  bully,  shaking  our  fists  in  everybody's  face  to  inform 
the  world  that  we  can  "whip  all  creation,"  then  the  sober 
judgment  of  the  American  people  will  be  that  the  less  we  have 
of  such  a  "  spirited  foreign  policy  "  the  better  for  our  good  name 
as  well  as  our  true  interests. 

The  fact  is  that  the  indiscriminate  screaming  of  the  eagle 
could  really  gratify  the  American  people  only  in  their  boyish 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    149 

days,  when  a  lingering  doubt  of  their  own  strength  impelled 
them  to  force  the  respect  of  foreign  nations  by  frequent  and 
vociferous  self-assertion.  We  have  got  bej'ond  that  now.  The 
American  people  have  grown  to  man's  estate.  When  a  business 
man  is  rising  in  fortune,  but  is  not  yet  recognized,  he  may  think 
that  blazing  diamonds  on  his  shirt-front  will  impress  others 
with  his  wealth.  When  his  success  is  sufficiently  established  and 
known,  the  same  man  will  feel  that  it  becomes  him  to  be  simple, 
and  that  ostentatious  display  will  injure  his  reputation  for  good 
sense.  The  American  republic  has  grown  so  great  that  it  can 
afford  to  maintain  the  self-restraint  and  undemonstrative 
dignity  of  conscious  strength  without  being  misjudged  by  any- 
body as  to  its  power.  ...  If  we  still  exhibit  the  same  sensi- 
tiveness and  alarm  about  the  possibility  of  European  encroach- 
ment on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  which  with  greater  reason 
we  might  have  shown  forty  or  fifty  years  ago,  we  shall  only 
persuade  European  powers  that  we  ourselves  are  not  so  sure 
of  our  superiority  here  as  they  have  thought  us  to  be.  .  .  .  We, 
too,  think  that  a  war  may  sometimes  become  necessary,  but 
we  are  also  convinced  that  a  war  is  not  a  good  thing  for  a 
republic,  and  ought,  whenever  possible,  to  be  avoided.  We, 
too,  think  the  commercial  interests  of  the  United  States 
deserve  intelligent  consideration.  But  we  are  sure  that  every 
attempt  to  restore  the  foreign  commerce  of  this  country  by 
diplomatic  tricks  instead  of  sensible  economic  legislation  will 
prove  delusive  and  futile. 

What  the  American  people  want  is  a  just,  sober,  sensible,  and 
dignified  foreign  policy.  If  the  Democrats  think  they  can 
carry  public  opinion,  and  thereby  a  Presidential  election,  by 
presenting  a  programme  that  is  "spirited"  enough  to  disturb 
our  peaceful  relations  with  the  world,  they  only  prove  again 
that  whenever  there  is  a  blunder  to  be  made  the  Democratic 
party  is  sure  to  jump  at  the  chance. 


150    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

1883 

Congressional  Fostering  of  Art 

The  petition  of  the  American  artists  resident  in  Paris 
against  the  duty  of  thirty  per  cent  on  foreign  pictures 
inserted  in  the  revised  tariff  moved  the  Nation  to  the 
following  remarks  (April  19) : 

We  are  particularly  sorry  for  the  American  artists  in  Paris, 
because  on  them  devolves  the  task  of  explaining  to  foreigners 
the  mental  attitude  of  the  American  politician  toward  litera- 
ture and  art,  and  every  one  who  has  ever  tried  it  knows  how  dif- 
ficult this  is.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  make  a  Frenchman  or  a 
German  understand  how  it  is  that  to  a  large  body  of  our  legisla- 
tors and  men  in  public  life,  and  even  to  some  of  our  publishers, 
books  and  pictures  are  simply  merchandise  and  things  to  sell, 
and  not  by  any  means  instruments  for  the  improvement  of  the 
human  mind  and  the  elevation  of  character;  or  how  it  is  that  to 
Congress  the  "manufacture"  of  books  is  a  much  more  import- 
ant interest  than  the  composition  of  them  —  the  paper  and 
binding  far  better  worth  taking  care  of  than  the  thinking  which 
finds  expression  in  them  —  and  that,  therefore,  one  well-bound 
and  well-printed  book  is  as  good  as  another,  just  as  one  piece  of 
pig-iron  is  as  good  as  another;  or  how  it  is  that  to  the  ordinary 
Congressman  a  picture  is  merely  so  much  furniture,  like  chairs 
and  sofas,  used  by  well-to-do  citizens  to  fill  their  rooms  up,  and 
that,  therefore,  the  use  of  the  native  picture  ought  to  be  en- 
couraged by  the  same  means  which  are  used  to  encourage  the 
native  carpet  and  wall-paper.  All  this  can  only  be  explained  to 
a  foreigner  by  persons  possessing  remarkable  powers  of  exposi- 
tion, and  using  their  mother  tongue.  Very  few  Americans, 
however  well  they  speak  French  or  German,  are  sufficiently  at 
home  in  either  language  to  do  it  successfully.   In  some  of  its 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    151 

aspects,  expounding  the  protectionist  Congressional  mind  to  a 
stranger  is  very  like  expounding  Kant  or  Hegel  —  something 
which  nobody  who  does  not  possess  extraordinary  mental 
subtlety,  combined  with  remarkable  powers  of  expression,  will 
attempt. 

Nor  is  it  easy  to  overcome  the  protectionist  Congressman  by 
questioning  his  judgment  in  matters  of  art.  He  is  very  touchy 
on  this  point,  and  has  always  maintained  that  he  is  as  good  a 
judge  of  a  picture  or  a  statue  as  any  one  in  the  world,  because 
he  maintains  that  all  art  is  purely  imitative,  and  that  he  can 
judge  whether  a  picture  resembles  what  it  purports  to  repre- 
sent, just  as  well  as  he  can  tell  whether  a  photograph  is  a  good 
likeness.  He  consequently  does  not  look  with  a  lenient  eye  on 
the  practice  of  going  abroad  to  study  art,  for  he  maintains  that 
there  is  nothing  worth  imitating  that  cannot  be  found  on  this 
continent.  If  an  American  wants  to  paint  a  man,  let  him  paint 
one  of  his  countrymen  from  life;  if  a  horse,  an  American  horse; 
if  a  house,  an  American  farmhouse;  and  in  the  earlier  stages 
he  can  get  far  more  aid  from  photography  than  from  the 
instructions  of  Couture  or  Meissonnier  or  any  monarchical 
painters.  About  the  value  of  "the  old  masters"  he  is  highly 
sceptical.  To  him  they  are  "fossils,"  of  no  more  account  than 
very  old  men  in  politics  usually  are. 

In  this  particular  case,  we  believe,  the  rise  in  the  duty  on 
foreign  pictures  was  due  to  a  West  Virginian  farmer  —  Mr. 
Boteler  of  the  Tariff  Commission  —  who  is  deeply  impressed 
with  the  necessity  of  building  up  native  art  by  a  judicious  use 
of  what  has  built  up  so  much  other  native  industry.  The  Com- 
mission and  the  Senate  Finance  Committee  were  quite  taken 
with  the  idea,  and  adopted  it.  And  we  must  remember,  in  ex- 
tenuation of  his  folly,  that  he  could  now  fortify  himself  with 
the  demands  which  some  of  our  artists  at  home  make  from  time 
to  time  for  protection  from  foreign  competition,  and  by  the  ex- 
traordinary petition  which  was  signed  by  some  of  our  authors 


152    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

a  few  weeks  ago  asking  for  a  duty  on  foreign  books  as  a  pro- 
tection against  foreign  ideas. 

All  this  shows  that  the  tariff,  in  many  minds,  has  become  a 
sort  of  American  fetish,  to  which  some  of  us  have  got  into  the 
habit  of  turning  for  relief  in  times  of  sickness,  sorrow,  or  adver- 
sity. When  we  are  suffering  from  malaria  we  put  up  the  duty  on 
quinine.  If  the  winter  is  very  severe,  we  put  it  up  on  foreign 
clothing.  If  rents  are  high,  we  increase  it  on  lumber  and  nails 
and  paint;  if  we  are  startled  by  popular  ignorance  or  illiteracy, 
we  raise  it  on  books,  and  paper,  and  printers'  materials.  If  we 
want  more  railroads  we  raise  it  on  iron.  If  we  sigh  for  more  art 
in  our  lives  and  homes,  we  increase  the  duty  on  pictures,  or 
engraving  and  statuary.  In  fact,  no  African  fetish  or  Italian 
saint's  image  has  harder  work  to  do  for  its  worshippers  than  our 
tariff  has  to  do  for  some  unhappy  or  unsuccessful  Americans. 


1884 

The  Nation  and  the  "Cleveland  Scandal" 

When  the  so-called  "Cleveland  scandal"  was  sprung 
upon  the  country,  Mr.  Godkin,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say, 
set  public  opinion  right  by  an  outspoken  article,  which 
went  to  the  root  of  the  matter.  He  said  (August  7) : 

"Well,  but,"  we  shall  be  asked,  "does  not  the  charge 
against  Cleveland,  as  you  yourselves  state  and  admit  it,  dis- 
qualify him,  in  your  estimation,  for  the  Presidency  of  the 
United  States?"  We  answer  frankly:  "Yes,  if  his  opponent  be 
free  from  this  stain,  and  as  good  a  man  in  all  other  ways."  We 
should  like  to  see  candidates  for  the  Presidency  models  of  all 
the  virtues,  pure  as  the  snow  and  steadfast  as  the  eternal  hills. 
But  when  the  alternative  is  a  man  of  whom  the  Buffalo  Express, 
a  political  opponent,  said  immediately  after  his  nomination, 
"that  the  people  of  Buffalo  had  known  him  as  one  of  their 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    153 

worthiest  citizens,  one  of  their  manliest  men,  faithful  to  his 
clients,  faithful  to  his  friends,  and  faithful  to  every  public 
trust,"  and  of  whom  the  Buffalo  Commerical,  another  political 
opponent,  said  that,  in  opposing  him,  "it  would  not  detract  one 
jot  or  tittle  from  the  well-earned  fame  of  the  distinguished 
gentleman  who  honored  the  opposition  by  bearing  its  stand- 
ard," a  good  son  and  good  brother,  and  unmarried  in  order  that 
he  might  be  the  better  son  and  brother,  against  whom  nothing 
can  be  said  except  that  he  has  not  been  proof  against  one  of  the 
most  powerful  temptations  by  which  human  nature  is  assailed ; 
or,  on  the  other  hand,  a  man  convicted  out  of  his  own  mouth 
of  having  publicly  lied  in  order  to  hide  his  jobbery  in  office,  of 
having  offered  his  judicial  decisions  as  a  sign  of  his  possible  use- 
fulness to  railroad  speculators  in  case  they  paid  him  his  price, 
of  trading  in  charters  which  had  been  benefited  by  legislation  in 
which  he  took  part,  and  of  having  broken  his  word  of  honor  in 
order  to  destroy  documentary  evidence  of  his  corruption,  —  a 
man  who  has  accumulated  a  fortune  in  a  few  years  on  the  sal- 
ary of  a  Congressman,  —  then  we  say  emphatically  no  —  ten 
thousand  times  no.  We  should  be  ashamed  of  ourselves  if  we 
had  any  other  answer  to  make,  and  are  amazed  to  hear  that 
there  are  scores  of  clergymen  all  over  the  country  advising 
people  who  care  for  morality  to  choose  the  trickster  and  jobber 
because  he  is  chaste  before  the  honest  man,  faithful  to  every 
public  trust,  because  he  has  been  weak  before  a  passion  of 
which  everybody  knows  the  force. 

We  had  supposed  the  reason  of  this  was  so  obvious  that  it 
did  not  need  to  be  stated.  Cleveland's  virtues  are  those  which 
bind  human  society  together,  and  in  which  states  are  founded 
and  maintained.  There  has  been  no  great  benefactor  of  the 
human  race  who  has  not  been  truthful,  faithful  to  his  trusts, 
disinterested,  self-denying.  There  have  been  very  few  who 
have  been  chaste.  Blaine's  vices  are  those  by  which  govern- 
ments are  overthrown,  states  brought  to  naught,  and  the 


154    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

haunts  of  commerce  turned  into  dens  of  thieves.  The  standard 
by  which  some  ministers  now  propose  to  exclude  Cleveland 
from  high  place  would  have  prevented  Washington,  Franklin, 
Jefferson,  Hamilton,  not  to  go  any  further,  from  taking  any 
prominent  part  in  the  foundation  of  the  American  Republic. 
It  would  have  excluded  from  office  in  England  nearly  every 
great  statesman  or  reformer  of  the  last  hundred  years,  except, 
perhaps,  Romilly,  Wilberforce,  and  Gladstone.  It  would  have 
visited  nearly  every  prominent  politician  in  the  Republican  party 
since  1860  with  popular  odium.  It  would,  had  the  Democrats 
chosen  to  apply  it,  have  defeated  one  Republican  candidate  for 
the  Presidency  by  charges  worse  by  far  than  Cleveland's,  in  that 
they  added  the  sin  of  broken  vows  to  the  sin  of  incontinence. 
We  are  not  defending  incontinence.  Chastity  is  a  great  vir- 
tue, but  every  man  knows  in  his  heart  that  it  is  not  the  great- 
est of  virtues,  that  offences  against  it  have  often  been  consist- 
ent with  the  possession  of  all  the  qualities  which  ennoble 
human  nature  and  dignify  human  life  and  make  human  pro- 
gress possible.  It  ought  to  be  preached  and  practised  by  every 
man  to  the  utmost  of  his  ability,  but  no  one  ought  to  preach  it 
with  any  other  motive  than  the  spread  of  virtue,  and  least  of  all 
for  the  purpose,  as  in  the  present  case,  of  making  some  of  the 
basest  of  vices  —  the  vices  which  sap  everything  that  is  valu- 
able in  society  and  politics  —  seem  respectable.  Preaching  of 
this  sort,  at  this  time,  is  cant,  and  cant  in  its  most  loathsome 
form,  for  it  fills  every  household  in  the  land  with  filthy  sugges- 
tions and  insinuations,  turns  the  press  into  a  common  sewer, 
and  converts  scores  of  editors  into  hypocrites,  who  must  blush 
in  secret  over  their  own  ridiculous  sermons  and  their  simulated 
righteousness.  We  will  not  for  our  part  support  the  Republi- 
can party  at  this  crisis  in  an  attempt  to  capture  the  Presidency 
for  a  trickster,  as  Joshua  captured  Jericho,  by  the  aid  of  a 
harlot.  Great  as  its  faults  are,  it  deserves  a  less  ignominious 
end  than  this. 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    155 

1885 
Mr.  Lowell's  Official  Career 

The  return  to  America  of  Mr.  Lowell  as  a  private 
citizen,  after  eight  years  of;  official  life,  afforded  the 
Nation  an  opportunity  of  dwelling  on  his  official  career, 
which  it  said  had  had  no  parallel  in  effectiveness,  except 
Franklin's  mission  to  Paris,  and  Charles  Francis  Adams's 
in  England  during  and  after  the  war. 

After  speaking  of  the  fact  that  American  legations 
abroad  have  never  had  the  importance  of  those  of  the 
Old  World,  the  Nation  went  on  to  say  (May  28) : 

The  London  mission  has,  however,  always  constituted  an 
exception  to  this  rule.  The  United  States  are  connected  with 
England  by  so  many  ties  —  ties  of  blood,  of  religion,  of  lan- 
guage, of  law,  of  political  traditions  and  manners  —  that  the 
American  Minister  in  London,  no  matter  what  kind  of  man  he 
is,  must  needs  be  a  great  personage,  much  observed  and  much 
criticised.  It  has,  for  this  reason,  been,  from  the  very  founda- 
tion of  the  Government,  a  tradition  of  American  diplomacy 
that  the  American  representative  at  that  point  should  be  a 
specimen  of  the  best  the  United  States  can  produce  in  the  way 
of  social  and  intellectual  culture,  and  should,  in  some  sort, 
represent  the  American  people  in  its  best  clothes  and  with  its 
company  manners.  It  is  casting  no  reproach  or  slur  on  any  of 
Mr.  Lowell's  predecessors  to  say  that  none  of  them  has  played 
this  part  so  well  as  he.  To  those  who  hold  the  semi-barbarous 
notion  that  one  of  the  duties  of  a  foreign  minister  is  to  occupy  a 
defiant  attitude  toward  the  people  to  whom  he  is  accredited  — 
that  he  should  stick  to  his  post,  to  use  the  popular  phrase, 
"with  his  back  up,"  and  keep  the  world  he  lives  in  constantly 
in  mind  that  his  countrymen  are  rough,  untamable,  and  above 
all  things  quarrelsome,  Mr.  Lowell  has  not  seemed  a  success. 


156    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

But  to  them  we  must  observe,  that  they  know  so  little  of  the 
object  of  diplomacy  that  their  opinion  is  of  no  sort  of  conse- 
quence. The  aim  of  diplomacy  is  not  to  provoke  war,  but  to 
keep  the  peace ;  it  is  not  to  beget  irritation,  or  keep  it  alive,  but 
to  produce  and  maintain  a  pacific  temper;  not  to  make  disputes 
hard,  but  easy,  to  settle;  not  to  magnify  differences  of  interest 
or  feeling,  but  to  make  them  seem  small;  not  to  win  by  threats, 
but  by  persuasion;  not  to  promote  mutual  ignorance,  but  mu- 
tual comprehension  —  to  be,  in  short,  the  representative  of  a 
Christian  nation,  and  not  of  a  savage  tribe. 

No  foreign  minister,  it  is  safe  to  say,  has  ever  done  these 
things  so  successfully  in  the  same  space  of  time  as  Mr.  Lowell. 
If  it  be  a  service  to  the  United  States  to  inspire  Englishmen 
with  respect  such  as  they  have  never  felt  before  for  American 
wit  and  eloquence  and  knowledge,  and  thus  for  American  civili- 
zation itself,  nobody  has  rendered  this  service  so  effectively  as 
he  has  done.  They  are  familiar  almost  ad  nauseam  with  the 
material  growth  of  the  United  States,  with  the  immense  strides 
which  the  country  has  made  and  is  making  in  the  production  of 
things  to  eat,  drink,  and  wear.  What  they  know  least  of,  and 
have  had  most  doubts  about,  is  American  progress  in  acquiring 
those  gifts  and  graces  which  are  commonly  supposed  to  be  the 
inheritance  of  countries  that  have  left  the  ruder  beginnings  of 
national  life  far  behind,  and  have  had  centuries  of  leisure  for 
art,  literature,  and  science.  Well,  Mr.  Lowell  has  disabused 
them.  As  far  as  blood  and  training  go,  there  is  no  more  genu- 
ine American  than  he.  He  went  to  England  as  pure  a  product  of 
the  American  soil  as  has  ever  landed  there,  and  yet  he  at  once 
showed  English  scholars  that  in  the  field  of  English  letters  they 
had  nothing  to  teach  him.  In  that  higher  political  philosophy 
which  all  Englishmen  are  now  questioning  so  anxiously,  he  has 
spoken  not  only  as  a  master,  but  almost  as  an  oracle.  In  the 
lighter  but  still  more  difficult  arts,  too,  which  make  social 
gatherings  delightful  and  exciting  to  intellectual  men,  in  the 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    157 

talk  which  stimulates  strong  brains  and  loosens  eloquent 
tongues,  he  has  really  reduced  the  best-trained  and  most  lo- 
quacious London  diners-out  to  abashed  silence.  In  fact,  he  has, 
in  captivating  English  society  —  harder,  perhaps,  to  cultivate, 
considering  the  vast  variety  of  talent  it  contains,  than  any  other 
society  in  the  world  —  in  making  every  Englishman  who  met 
him  wish  he  were  an  Englishman  too,  performed  a  feat  such  as 
no  diplomatist,  we  believe,  has  ever  performed  before. 

The  First  Six  Months  of  President  Cleveland's  Administration 

After  Mr.  Cleveland  had  been  in  office  six  months,  the 
Nation  reviewed  what  had  been  accomplished  by  his 
Administration  during  that  time.  First  and  foremost,  it 
said,  it  had  been  demonstrated  that  the  public  interests 
were  as  safe  in  the  hands  of  one  party  as  in  those  of  the 
other.  It  seems  almost  incredible,  it  remarked,  that "  only 
a  few  months  ago,  there  were  hosts  of  men  who  fully  and 
sincerely  believed  that  the  election  of  Mr.  Cleveland 
meant  the  bankruptcy  of  the  Federal  Treasury  by  the 
payment  of  rebel  claims. " 

Next  to  the  dread  [it  said,  September  10]  of  national  ruin 
was  the  apprehension  of  a  "clean  sweep"  of  the  office-holders, 
and  the  consequent  demoralization  of  the  civil  service.  Six 
months  have  sufficed  to  remove  this  apprehension.  One  eighth 
of  Mr.  Cleveland's  term  has  expired,  and  only  about  one  eighth 
of  the  Republicans  whom  he  found  in  place  have  been  suc- 
ceeded by  Democrats.  The  Civil-Service  Law  has  been  main- 
tained in  spirit  as  well  as  in  letter,  and  among  the  14,000 
positions  which  it  covers,  in  the  departmental  service  at  Wash- 
ington and  the  large  customs-houses  and  post-offices  through- 
out the  country,  removals  have,  as  a  rule,  been  made  only  for 
cause  —  the  few  exceptions  having  aroused  such  criticism  that 
the.  performance  is  not  likely  to  be  repeated.  .  .  . 


158    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

The  check  which  it  has  put  upon  the  spoils  doctrine  is  the 
chief  merit  of  the  Administration  thus  far.  But  while  the  dis- 
position of  the  offices  has  naturally  occupied  the  larger  share 
of  their  time,  the  President  and  his  Cabinet  have  already  done 
enough  to  establish  the  character  of  the  new  regime  in  its  other 
relations.  Its  distinguishing  feature  is  the  conduct  of  public 
affairs  upon  business  principles.  The  various  branches  of  the 
Government  are  being  overhauled  with  a  view  to  the  sup- 
pression of  wasteful  methods,  the  abolition  of  sinecures,  the 
reform  of  abuses.  The  wisdom  of  a  change  has  already  been 
vindicated  by  the  discovery  that  under  the  unquestioned  rule 
of  one  party  the  public  service  had  fallen  into  ruts,  lapsed  into 
shiftless  habits,  and  even  degenerated  into  corruption,  which 
nothing  short  of  a  revolution  in  control  could  overcome.  In  its 
relations  with  the  Indians,  its  dealings  with  the  trespassers 
upon  the  public  lands,  its  treatment  of  naval  contractors,  the 
Administration  has  introduced  new  rules  of  action,  based  upon 
adherence  to  law  and  regard  for  the  public  interests,  rather 
than  upon  the  consideration  long  shown  to  political  favorites 
and  powerful  financial  interests.  The  strongest  impression 
which  it  makes  upon  the  public  mind  is  that  of  a  body  of  men 
who,  though  strong  partisans,  are  making  a  sincere  effort  to 
redeem  all  their  pledges.  The  Administration  has  made  blun- 
ders and  been  justly  criticised  for  them;  indeed,  no  Adminis- 
tration ever  found  the  people  in  so  critical  a  mood.  But  the 
verdict  of  all  candid  men  must  certainly  be  that  it  has  made  a 
good  start  in  its  first  six  months. 


1886 
Charles  Francis  Adams 


TnE  death  of  Charles  Francis  Adams  removed  one  of 
the  few  remaining  examples  of  the  "statesmen  of  the 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS     159 

old  school."  As  such,  in  the  earlier  part  of  his  career, 
he  came  out  as  a  "Conscience  Whig,"  and,  still  later,  he 
joined  the  Free  Soilers. 

The  same  quality  of  independence  [Mr.  Godkin  wrote, 
November  25]  did  much  —  his  intellectual  force  and  special 
learning  did  the  rest  —  to  make  him  the  power  he  was  at  his 
post  in  London  during  the  war.  The  news  from  home  during  a 
large  part  of  that  period  was  very  conflicting;  the  fortunes  of 
the  struggle  varied  greatly  from  week  to  week;  the  wisest  ob- 
servers were  often  in  doubt  about  the  result,  and  Mr.  Seward's 
despatches  were  often,  in  American  as  well  as  in  European  eyes, 
full  of  vapor.  A  man  who  stood  less  firmly  on  his  own  feet,  or 
who  felt  more  keenly  the  need  of  surrounding  sympathy  and 
support,  would  inevitably  have  allowed  the  cause  of  his  coun- 
try —  sacred  as  it  then  was  —  to  suffer  in  his  hands  in  those 
trying  days.  But  Mr.  Adams  was  made  of  stuff  that  was 
abundantly  stern  for  the  crisis.  He  was  never  afraid,  never 
disheartened,  never  chilled;  he  never  minded  what  society  said 
or  the  newspapers  said.  He  met  the  English  with  a  temper  as 
dogged,  and  tenacious,  and  dauntless  as  their  own,  and  they 
had  at  last  to  confess  its  power  and  see  him  return  home  in 
triumph. 

The  very  qualities,  however,  which  fitted  him  for  his  place 
in  London,  cut  him  off  in  some  degree  from  receiving  its  re- 
wards. He  came  back  in  1868  to  a  much  more  effusive  America 
than  the  one  he  had  left  in  1860.  The  war  had  broken  up  the 
fountains  of  national  feeling  and  filled  every  home  in  the 
country  with  sentiment,  which  was  poured  out  lavishly  on  all 
who  had  served  the  republic  well  during  the  struggle.  Mr. 
Adams  shrank  from  the  expressions  of  popular  gratitude  to 
himself  in  a  way  which  the  public  found  a  little  chilling,  and 
which  undoubtedly  had  something  to  do  with  his  subsequent 
retirement  from  political  life.    It  was  pure  and  unmitigated 


160    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

fitness,  such  as  no  other  man  had,  which  put  him  at  the  head 
of  the  Geneva  Tribunal.  His  own  indifference  had  undoubtedly 
much  to  do  with  the  failure  to  nominate  him  in  1872  in  Cin- 
cinnati, and  to  beget  and  spread  the  impression  of  his  coldness, 
which  for  some  years  afterwards  furnished  the  material  for  so 
many  newspaper  jokes.  No  candidate  could  possibly  have 
been  so  difficult  to  "whoop  up"  as  he  was,  and  would  have 
been  so  thoroughly  disgusted  at  finding  himself  the  central 
figure  of  any  movement  to  the  success  of  which  humbug  or 
gush  was  in  the  smallest  degree  necessary.  Simplicity  and  sin- 
cerity were  the  notes  of  his  character,  and  they  were  seasoned 
with  a  dry  humor  which  kept  his  sense  of  proportion  in  beau- 
tiful order,  and  never  allowed  him  to  get  into  any  position  in 
which  there  could  be  any  doubt  about  the  nature  of  his  aims 
or  the  meaning  of  his  language.  There  has  seldom  been  a  man 
in  public  life  less  "magnetic,"  in  any  sense  of  that  much 
abused  term.  Anybody  who  liked  or  admired  him  could  always 
tell  without  difficulty  why  he  did  so.  This  is  what  he  himself 
most  desired. 

Since  his  time,  "  magnetism  "  has  played  a  larger  and  larger 
part  in  politics,  but  it  has  ended  by  palling  on  the  public. 
There  is  a  visible  reaction  in  favor  of  the  older  and  more  aus- 
tere type  of  statesman,  of  which  Mr.  Adams  was  an  example. 
Over  his  career,  —  especially  the  little-known  period,  on  the 
eve  of  the  annexation  of  Texas,  when  his  pen  composed  some 
of  the  most  remarkable  State  papers  on  the  subject  of  the  slave 
power  that  adorn  the  legislative  annals  of  Massachusetts,  — 
readers  of  American  history  will  probably  linger  with  more 
and  more  admiration  as  the  years  go  by,  and  as  the  demands 
of  the  commonwealth  on  the  highest  prudence,  sagacity,  and 
integrity  of  its  public  men  grow  in  number  and  in  solemnity. 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS     161 

1886 

The  Lesson  of  the  Railroad  Strikes 

The  railroad  strikes,  which  caused  a  great  deal  of  pe- 
cuniary loss  to  the  corporations,  to  the  workingmen,  and 
to  the  business  community,  called  forth  a  discussion  of 
the  labor  problem  such  as,  perhaps,  had  never  before 
taken  place.  This  the  Nation  considered  a  fact  of  inesti- 
mable value. 

No  matter  [it  argued,  May  6]  how  mischievous  or  how  badly 
managed  trade  organizations  may  be,  or  how  absurd  the  pre- 
tensions they  make,  their  continuance  and  growth  is  certain. 
The  individual  laborer  in  any  calling  is,  in  these  days  of  great 
accumulations  of  capital,  very  weak  and  helpless  in  his  rela- 
tions with  the  employer.  He  knows  that  combination  with  his 
fellows  will  give  him  strength  in  making  his  bargains  and  de- 
fending his  rights,  and  therefore  combine  he  will.  But  the  very 
fact  that  these  combinations  are  intended  to  make  the  weak 
strong,  makes  them  also  to  a  certain  degree  hostile  to  all  excel- 
lence. They  nearly  all  oppose  bitterly  any  display  of  individual 
superiority.  They  nearly  all  see  to  it  that  unusual  ingenuity, 
or  skill,  or  diligence,  or  ambition,  or  industry  shall  not  profit 
a  man.  They  nearly  all  try  to  keep  all  the  members  down  to  the 
level  of  the  most  stupid,  or  slow,  or  indolent,  or  contented.  In 
so  far  they  are  hostile  to  civilization  itself,  and  are  drags  on 
the  wheels  of  both  moral  and  material  progress.  They  cultivate 
deliberately,  in  spite  of  the  professions  of  their  documents,  a 
rather  low  mental  and  moral  type  of  man.  But  this  makes  it 
all  the  more  important  that  the  corporations  and  other  great 
employers  of  labor  who  suffer  from  them,  and  who  refuse  to 
"recognize"  them,  should  in  their  dealings  with  their  own 
employees  open  up  a  more  excellent  way.  If  there  be  any  one 


162    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

inference  from  the  late  labor  troubles  more  palpable  than  an- 
other, it  is  that  the  great  corporations  should  do  more  to  raise 
the  character  of  their  own  service,  to  infuse  into  their  deal- 
ings with  their  employees  something  better  than  the  spirit  of 
contract  or  patronage  merely.  In  other  words,  they  should  do 
something  to  make  their  men  feel  that  the  Union  is  not  a  ne- 
cessity to  them;  that  the  employer  will  not  take  advantage  of 
their  weakness,  and  that  the  corps  in  which  they  work  serves 
all  the  purposes  of  a  trade-union,  and  does  secure  them  kindly 
and  considerate  treatment,  the  best  wages  the  market  allows, 
and  protection  from  arbitrary  or  hasty  dismissal. 

There  is  not  a  railroad  in  this  country  which  might  not  by  a 
little  effort  make  its  own  service  a  sort  of  corps  d' 'elite,  which 
would  attract  the  most  capable  and  ambitious  men,  and  in 
which  there  would  be  free  play  for  talent  and  capacity.  Some 
of  them  have  done  this,  or  made  a  very  near  approach  to  it 
already,  but  in  a  large  number  the  managers  care  very  little 
how  the  employees  feel,  as  long  as  they  do  not  strike,  and  do 
very  little  to  make  the  service  attractive  to  picked  men.  We 
believe  that  a  change  of  policy  in  this  respect  would  soon  give 
us  large  bodies  of  laborers  in  all  fields,  who  would  be  just  as 
much  ashamed  to  abandon  their  work,  without  knowing  why, 
on  seeing  two  fingers  held  up,  or  to  pummel  people  who  took 
their  places,  or  picket  or  boycott  their  employer's  premises,  as 
clergymen,  or  lawyers,  or  doctors  would  be. 


1887 
Restricting  Immigration 


An  impetus  to  the  movement  to  restrict  immigration 
was  given  by  the  conduct  of  the  foreign-born  anarchists 
and  the  efforts  of  the  Knights  of  Labor  to  set  up  an  or- 
ganization which  was  to  overshadow  both  the  Federal 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    163 

and  State  authorities.  Most  of  the  methods  proposed 
for  the  restriction  of  immigration  struck  the  Nation 
as  childish. 

There  is  no  possible  way  [it  said,  December  29]  of  detect- 
ing an  anarchist  or  labor  agitator  when  he  lands  from  the 
steamer.  The  worst  cut-throats  or  bomb-throwers  are  very  apt 
to  wear  the  mildest  and  most  studious  expression  of  counte- 
nance, and  are  very  often  the  best  educated  in  a  whole  ship- 
load. Moreover,  inquiries  into  character  at  the  place  of  em- 
barkation, by  a  consul  or  other  official,  would  be  utterly  futile. 
Even  if  it  were  physically  possible  to  get  any  information  of  any 
kind  about  the  character  and  antecedents  of  the  half  million  of 
poor  people  who  every  year  take  ship  at  Liverpool,  or  Havre, 
or  Hamburg  for  the  United  States,  whom  could  we  charge  with 
the  duty  of  making  the  inquiries?  Certainly  not  our  consuls  as 
at  present  selected.  A  letter  from  an  ex-consul  to  the  Evening 
Post  explains  forcibly  the  difficulties  of  any  such  undertaking, 
even  if  our  consuls  were  fitted  for  the  task  in  the  matter  of 
linguistic  skill  and  experience  of  foreign  life,  and  even  if  the 
authorities  at  foreign  ports  were  as  much  interested  in  keeping 
the  emigrants  as  they  are  in  getting  rid  of  them.  In  short,  the 
attempt  to  extract  a  trustworthy  certificate  of  character  from 
every  newcomer  who  lands  in  the  United  States,  would  be 
ridiculous  from  the  outset,  and  be  speedily  abandoned.  The 
nearest  approach  that  could  be  made  to  a  sifting  process  would 
be  the  imposition  of  a  capitation  tax.  If  shipowners  could  not 
land  passengers  without  paying  this,  they  would  not  take  on 
board  anybody  who  could  not  furnish  the  money:  and  ability 
to  furnish  the  money,  if  it  were  more  than  a  nominal  sum, 
would  be  some  slight  guarantee  of  thrift,  and  industry,  and 
prudence,  and  of  a  desire  to  pursue  with  steadiness  some 
honest  calling. 

How  a  prolongation  of  the  term  of  residence  before  natural- 


164    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

ization  would  solve  the  problem,  it  is  hard  to  see.  It  sounds 
very  like  the  old  Southern  plan  of  preventing  the  mingling  of 
races  by  prohibiting  marriage  between  blacks  and  whites.  A 
European  loafer,  or  anarchist,  or  blackguard  of  any  description 
would  be  just  as  mischievous  in  the  character  of  a  foreign 
resident  as  in  that  of  a  naturalized  citizen.  In  fact,  we  are 
inclined  to  think  he  would  be  more  so,  because,  if  allowed  to 
vote,  he  might  blow  off  some  of  his  deviltry  at  the  polls.  A 
prolongation  of  the  period  of  probation,  and  the  exaction  of 
guarantees  of  good  behavior  and  intelligence  before  natural- 
ization, would  undoubtedly  be  a  good  thing  for  politics;  but 
we  do  not  see  how  it  would  protect  us  against  attacks  on  social 
order  by  foreign  cranks  or  malcontents  whom  we  once  allowed 
to  land  and  take  up  their  abode  here.  In  fact,  the  one  way  in 
which  legislation  would  seem  likely  to  prove  in  any  degree 
effective  would  be  in  preventing  the  huge  importations  of  un- 
skilled, and  indeed  half-savage,  labor,  in  which  some  of  the 
mining  companies  have  indulged,  as  a  means  of  enabling  them 
to  achieve  temporary  victories  over  strikers.  We  say  tempo- 
rary, because  as  soon  as  the  half-savages  learn  the  map  of 
the  place,  they  become  strikers  in  their  turn,  and  worse  ones 
than  their  predecessors.  This  practice,  we  are  glad  to  say,  the 
existing  law  against  the  importation  of  contract  labor  will  prob- 
ably stop,  and  its  stoppage  will  be  all  the  more  welcome  be- 
cause it  originated  with,  and  has  been  carried  on  mainly  by, 
those  who  support  a  high  tariff  as  "protection  for  American 
labor." 

A  vast  amount  of  comfort  for  those  who  are  most  troubled  by 
the  evils  of  unrestricted  immigration  and  the  difficulty  of  any 
process  of  selection,  is  to  be  found  in  the  reflection  that  the 
troublesome  or  mischievous  immigrants  are  an  infinitesimally 
small  part  of  the  whole.  Those  who  cause  either  loss,  damage, 
or  vexation  bear  to  those  who  make  the  American  rate  of 
material  and  political  progress  possible,  a  very  small  pro- 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    165 

portion  indeed.  As  has  been  so  often  pointed  out,  at  dinners 
of  the  New  England  Society,  the  immense  capacity  of  the 
Yankee  for  "bossing"  would  be  utterly  useless  to  the  country 
if  the  supply  of  foreigners  to  be  bossed  were  not  well  kept  up. 
Native  talent  has,  for  the  greater  part  of  this  century,  run  to 
plotting,  and  planning,  and  superintending,  and  the  results 
would  not  have  been  as  tremendous  as  they  have  been,  if 
Europe  had  not  steadily  recruited  the  ranks  of  manual  labor. 


1888 
The  British- Americans 


Mr.  Goldwin  Smith,  a  historian  and  publicist  thor- 
oughly familiar  with  politics  in  our  own  country,  as  well 
as  in  England  and  Canada,  took  occasion,  in  addressing 
the  Canadian  Club  of  New  York  City,  to  give  British- 
Americans  residing  in  the  United  States  good  advice  in 
the  matter  of  becoming  naturalized  and  taking  an  active 
part  in  American  politics.  The  Nation,  in  commenting 
upon  his  address,  remarked  (April  20) : 

That  British-Americans  —  that  is,  the  Englishmen,  Scotch- 
men, and  Canadians  resident  here  —  would,  as  far  as  tempera- 
ment and  character  go,  be  very  valuable  additions  to  the  voting 
body  in  the  United  States,  there  is  no  question.  They  are  for 
the  most  part  sober-minded,  industrious,  and  law-abiding  men, 
who  mind  their  own  business  carefully  and  let  that  of  other 
people  alone.  They  have,  too,  in  a  very  high  degree,  as  Mr. 
Goldwin  Smith  pointed  out  in  his  lecture,  the  political  sense 
which  has  made  England  the  political  model  for  so  many  suc- 
cessful and  unsuccessful  "nationalities."  That  they  have  a 
fair  readiness  for  political  jobbery,  the  history  of  British  poli- 
tics reveals  clearly  enough,  but  it  has  always  been  held  in 
check  by  their  eminent  capacity  for,  and  eminent  success  in, 


166    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AJUERICAN  IDEALISM 

lawful  and  honorable  modes  of  making  money.  Consequently, 
an  Englishman  or  Scotchman  will  hardly  ever  take  to  "poli- 
tics" as  a  livelihood  as  a  matter  of  choice,  or  until  he  has  tried 
and  failed  in  everything  else.  He  is  by  nature,  too,  a  very  indif- 
ferent intriguer  or  "manager."  He  loves  open-handed  meth- 
ods, and,  in  spite  of  considerable  natural  pigheadedness,  is 
probably  more  amenable  to  argument  than  any  other  politi- 
cian in  our  day.  Votes  are  still  sometimes  changed  in  the 
British  House  of  Commons  by  speeches,  and  we  do  not  know 
of  any  other  legislative  body  of  which  that  can  be  said. 

But  there  is  apparently  some  danger  that  if  the  British- 
Americans  follow  Mr.  Goldwin  Smith's  advice,  and  "take  out 
their  papers,"  they  will  do  it  under  a  misleading  and  somewhat 
mischievous  influence.  We  do  not  know,  of  course,  whether 
he  inserted  in  his  address  to  them  the  whack  at  Gladstone 
and  the  Irish  with  which  he  enlivens  nearly  all  his  utterances, 
and  which  we  verily  believe  finds  a  place  of  honor  in  his  morn- 
ing and  evening  prayers.  But  that  hostility  to  Gladstone  and 
the  Irish  colored  his  advice,  in  some  way  or  other,  we  have 
little  doubt;  and  that  it  is  having  an  unfortunate  effect  on  the 
minds  of  those  British-Americans  who  are  promoting  this  nat- 
uralization movement,  we  think  is  equally  true.  .  .  . 

We  think  the  very  best  advice  that  Mr.  Goldwin  Smith 
could  give  the  British-Americans  —  and  it  may  be  that  he  has 
given  it  to  them  already  —  would  be  to  prepare  for  American 
citizenship  by  cultivating  their  interest  in  the  really  important 
questions  of  American  politics,  such  as  tariff  and  taxation,  the 
civil  service,  municipal  government,  and  electoral  reform,  and 
popular  education  and  temperance,  and  let  the  Irish  and 
Gladstone  alone.  In  such  questions  we  fear  they  now  have 
very  little  interest,  and  know  very  little  of  them.  The  best 
thing  they  can  do  with  their  Boston  organ  is,  to  make  it  discuss 
them  intelligently,  both  for  their  own  enlightenment  and  to 
give  Americans  a  taste  of  their  quality.    If  they  show  the 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    1G7 

American  public  that  on  these  questions  they  will  powerfully 
reinforce  the  friends  of  economy,  order,  and  progress,  they  will 
as  citizens  be  very  welcome  indeed.  As  English  "Unionists" 
or  "Imperialists"  they  will  not  be  worth  to  the  United  States 
the  cost  of  naturalization,  small  as  that  is. 

The  Problems  Confronting  President  Harrison 

Upon  the  election  of  General  Harrison  to  the  Presi- 
dency the  Nation  remarked  (November  8) : 

When  President  Cleveland  sent  his  message  to  Congress  last 
December,  his  supporters  throughout  the  Northern  States, 
while  applauding  his  courage  and  feeling  that  he  had  rendered 
the  country  a  great  service  by  presenting  a  new  and  living 
issue  for  parties  to  divide  upon,  felt  also  that  he  had  sacrificed 
himself  to  a  principle,  and  that  the  first  battle  in  the  issue  he 
presented  would  inevitably  be  lost.  Well,  the  first  battle  has 
been  lost,  by  a  narrow  vote.  What  follows?  The  world  moves, 
either  forward  or  backward;  it  does  not  stand  still.  The  victors 
in  Tuesday's  contest  can  no  more  stand  still  than  the  van- 
quished. The  responsibility  for  the  national  finances  will,  after 
the  4th  of  March  next,  rest  with  the  Republican  party.  The 
surplus  will  stare  Mr.  Harrison  in  the  face,  just  as  it  now  stares 
Mr.  Cleveland.  It  must  be  got  rid  of,  either  by  reduced  taxa- 
tion or  by  extravagant  appropriations.  The  smallness  of  the 
Republican  majority  forbids  that  the  latter  policy  should  be 
adopted.  It  will  not  be  safe  to  inaugurate  a  system  of  national 
profligacy  in  order  to  empty  the  Treasury.  As  little  will  it  be 
safe  to  repeal  the  whiskey  tax  in  order  to  maintain  imposts  on 
the  necessaries  of  life.  The  masses  have  got  an  inkling  for  the 
first  time  that  the  tariff  is  a  tax  on  consumption,  and  therefore 
an  undue  and  unjust  burden  upon  labor.  They  are  not  likely 
to  forget  anything  that  they  have  learned  in  this  campaign  of 
education.  The  Republican  leaders,  those  who  in  former  years 


168    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

have  denounced  the  former  exorbitant  tariff  and  tried  to  bring 
it  within  the  measure  of  decency,  will  now  be  put  to  it  to  stem 
the  rising  tide  which  calls  for  reform  in  our  system  of  national 
taxation  —  a  tide  whose  impulses  are  not  unfelt  in  their  own 
ranks.  We  will  not  anticipate  the  outbreak  of  tariff  reform  in 
Republican  councils,  but  we  do  not  see  how  it  can  be  avoided. 
But  whether  it  comes  in  that  quarter  sooner  or  later,  this  great 
battle  on  an  entirely  new  issue,  which  so  narrowly  escaped 
being  a  victory,  will  go  on.  An  audience  has  been  secured  at 
last  for  the  principle  that  every  man  has  the  right  to  the  fruits 
of  his  own  labor,  without  deduction  for  the  recompense  of  the 
labor  or  capital  of  others.  Nobody  who  took  part  in  this  first 
skirmish  will  lay  down  his  arms  till  victory  is  won. 


1889 

Courage  in  Politics 


Ex-Senator  Ross,  of  Kansas,  latterly  a  resident  of 
Deming,  New  Mexico,  wrote  a  letter  in  the  St.  Louis 
Republic  regarding  his  course  in  voting  for  the  acquittal 
of  Andrew  Johnson  twenty-one  years  previously.  The 
letter  was  full  of  interest,  both  as  recalling  one  of  the 
most  important  crises  in  the  history  of  our  country,  and 
as  revealing  fully  the  character  of  the  man  whose  vote 
turned  the  scales  when  the  future  of  the  Government  was 
trembling  in  the  balance.  After  the  lapse  of  so  many 
years  the  import  of  the  action  of  Senator  Ross  was  seen 
in  its  true  light. 

If  the  effort  to  oust  Andrew  Johnson  had  succeeded  [said  the 
Nation,  September  26],  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Presi- 
dency would  have  lost  for  all  future  time  its  due  weight  of 
authority,  and  that  the  Executive  would  have  been  merely 
the  supple  tool  of  Congress.  The  balance  thus  disturbed,  the 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    1C9 

Supreme  Court  would  logically  and  inevitably  have  been  the 
next  object  of  Congressional  attack.  A  partisan  majority  which 
resented  the  use  of  the  Presidential  veto  to  defeat  the  enact- 
ment of  laws  that  it  wanted  to  pass,  would  not  long  have 
allowed  a  Supreme  Court,  after  those  laws  had  been  enacted, 
to  declare  them  "null  and  void,"  as  the  Supreme  Court  did  a 
few  years  later  annul  such  important  measures  as  the  Civil- 
Rights  Act.  The  effect  of  such  a  revolution  would  have  been 
to  make  Congress  the  sole  repository  of  power,  and  to  put  all 
the  processes  of  government  at  the  mercy  of  the  majority  in 
a  party  caucus.  The  melancholy  spectacle  presented  in  France 
of  late  years  —  of  a  powerless  executive,  a  legislative  depart- 
ment pulled  hither  and  thither  by  tides  of  popular  feeling,  and 
thus  a  government  which  inspires  neither  confidence  at  home 
nor  respect  abroad  —  would  have  been  seen  in  the  United 
States.  Mr.  Ross  does  not  exaggerate  when  he  says  that  "the 
logical  end  would  have  been  anarchy." 

From  this  utter  wreck  of  the  republican  experiment  in 
America,  we  were  saved  only  by  the  courage  of  Mr.  Ross  and 
the  six  other  Republican  Senators  who  voted  with  him  for  the 
acquittal  of  Johnson.  The  votes  of  all  seven  were  essential,  but 
at  the  time  Mr.  Ross  was  treated  as  the  man  who  turned  the 
scales,  inasmuch  as  the  verdict  of  the  other  six  had  been  fore- 
shadowed, while  his  course  was  left  in  doubt.  He  may  well 
rejoice  that  he  has  been  allowed  to  live  long  enough  to  see  his 
action  endorsed  by  the  American  people,  as  it  is  now  endorsed 
by  the  people  without  distinction  of  party.  In  this  respect  he 
has  been  more  fortunate  than  his  more  famous  associates, 
Fessenden  and  Grimes,  who  died  only  one  year  and  four  years 
after  the  trial,  before  full  justice  had  been  done  to  their  con- 
scientiousness and  courage. 

A  striking  and  impressive  feature  of  this  crisis  in  our  na- 
tional history  is  the  fact  the  man  who  thus  preserved  the 
Government  as  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  established  it, 


170    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

was  not  a  trained  statesman,  like  Fessenden,  and  Trumbull,  and 
Grimes,  and  that  he  had  secured  this  chance  to  make  his  name 
forever  remembered  through  the  accident  of  death  creating  a 
vacancy  in  the  representation  of  Kansas  in  the  Senate,  which 
he  was  first  appointed  and  subsequently  elected  to  fill.  He 
had  been  working  as  a  printer  only  a  short  time  before  his 
entrance  into  the  Senate,  and  he  is  back  again  at  his  old  trade 
in  New  Mexico,  after  having  served  as  Governor  of  that 
Territory  under  Cleveland.  But  this  quiet,  plain  man  rose  to 
the  level  of  an  occasion  which  called  for  the  highest  courage 
and  statesmanship,  and,  twenty  years  later,  though  he  ap- 
proaches old  age  in  obscurity,  he  enjoys  the  satisfaction  of 
seeing  his  services  to  the  republic  recognized  and  confessed  by 
all  thoughtful  men. 


1890 

Party  and  Other  Morality 

The  vote  in  the  House  of  Representatives  on  the 
Copyright  Bill,  and  the  arguments  used  against  the 
bill,  aroused  a  good  deal  of  indignation  among  thinking 
people. 

This  discussion  over  international  copyright  [said  the  Nation, 
May  22]  has  now  been  going  on  for  half-a-century,  and  the 
pros  and  cons  of  the  question  have  been  thoroughly  canvassed. 
It  may  be  said  that,  as  a  rule,  all  intelligent  Americans  who 
acknowledge  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  literary  property  at 
all,  have  ranged  themselves  on  the  side  of  those  who  are  willing 
to  provide  legal  protection  for  the  foreign  author  in  this  country, 
in  return  for  similar  protection  for  our  authors  in  foreign  coun- 
tries. A  very  marked  feature  in  the  controversy  has  been  the 
increasingly  prominent  part  which  the  question  of  right  or 
wrong,  as  distinguished  from  the  mere  question  of  commercial 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS     171 

expediency,  has  been  made  to  play  in  it.  In  other  words,  inter- 
national copyright  has,  as  the  years  have  gone  by,  been  more 
and  more  urged  on  the  ground  that  the  publication  and  sale 
of  an  author's  works  without  his  consent  and  without  paying 
him  any  compensation,  by  another  person  for  the  purpose  of 
making  money  by  it,  is  theft  or  fraud  in  the  sense  in  which 
these  offences  are  forbidden  in  the  commandment,  "Thou 
shalt  not  steal." 

The  answer  usually  made  to  this  by  the  opponents  of  inter- 
national copyright  is,  that  to  give  the  foreign  author  property 
in  his  books  on  this  side  of  the  water  would  make  them  dearer, 
and  that  cheap  books  are  so  important  for  the  American  people 
that  it  is  lawful  to  steal  them  from  a  foreigner,  if  they  cannot 
be  got  cheap  in  any  other  way.  It  has  been,  in  fact,  maintained, 
in  terms,  that  it  is  far  more  important  that  an  American  should 
be  well  read  and  intelligent  than  that  he  should  be  honest. 
One  member,  in  the  late  debate,  told  with  pride  a  story  of  his 
having  himself  paid  nine  dollars  a  volume  for  the  "Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica"  when  it  first  came  out,  a  work  requiring  an 
immense  expenditure  of  brains  and  capital,  for  which  the  pub- 
lishers paid  American  and  British  authors  equally.  Going  to 
spend  the  night  at  the  house  of  a  farmer  friend  in  Illinois  some 
time  later,  he  found  on  his  shelves  a  pirated  edition  which 
came  from  Philadelphia  and  only  cost  $2.25  a  volume.  On 
this  he  (Mr.  Payson)  made  the  astonishing  comment: 

"But  there,  sir,  in  an  humble  room  in  my  county,  in  the 
sitting-room  of  an  humble  farmer,  is  a  library  in  itself,  made 
possible  by  the  laws  under  which  you  and  I  live,  and  I  am 
content  with  them.  (Applause.)  I  am  just  now  advised  that 
a  reprint  of  that  work  is  out  at  $1.25  per  volume.  And  so  with 
other  books." 

This  is  exactly  what  a  Norse  statesman  in  the  ninth  century 
might  have  said  after  passing  a  night  in  a  farm-house  on  one 
of  the  fjords,  and  having  seen  it  filled  with  rich  plunder  from 


172    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

the  coasts  of  England  and  France.  "Thank  God,"  he  would 
observe,  "under  the  laws  and  customs  of  our  happy  country, 
when  the  poor  husbandman  wants  a  new  set  of  furniture  and 
some  ornaments  for  his  bride,  he  can  man  his  galley  and  run 
across  the  sea,  and  slaughter  a  Saxon  family,  and  fit  up  his 
humble  home  with  comfort  and  decency  from  the  sack  of  their 
house;  and  yet  there  are  canting  rascals  who  say  piracy  is 
wrong." 

Optimists  and  Pessimists 

Bishop  Potter's  Phi  Beta  Kappa  address  at  Harvard, 
in  which  he  pointed  out  some  of  the  social  and  political 
dangers  of  the  time,  brought  upon  him  from  certain 
political  quarters  the  reproach  of  being  a  "pessimist." 

It  is  not  surprising  [said  the  Nation,  July  20]  that  politicians 
should  consider  this  a  serious  reproach,  because  there  is  nothing 
from  which  they  themselves  shrink  so  fearfully.  No  man  who 
wants  to  make  his  way  in  public  life  ever  allows  for  a  moment 
that  anything  can  fail  to  "come  out  right  in  the  end,"  in  this 
very  best  of  republics,  unless,  indeed,  the  opposite  party  should 
stay  in  power  too  long,  or  should  happen,  by  any  untoward 
chance,  to  succeed  his  party  in  power.  In  either  of  these  cases 
no  view  of  the  future  of  the  Republic  is  too  dark  for  him  to 
take.  He  positively  revels  in  the  prospect  of  coming  woes. 
Those  who  can  recall  the  pictures  of  what  was  to  happen  in 
case  Cleveland  were  elected,  which  used  to  appear  in  the  New 
York  Tribune  and  other  Republican  organs  during  the  cam- 
paign of  1884,  will  admit  that  no  drearier  future  was  ever  held 
up  before  a  trembling  community  than  that  with  which  the 
American  people  was  threatened  during  those  eventful  months. 
At  that  time  it  was  held  in  Republican  circles  to  be  the  duty 
of  a  true  man  to  be  as  pessimistic  as  he  knew  how  to  be,  and 
not  to  keep  his  gloom  to  himself  either,  but  to  fill  every  market- 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    173 

place  with  his  groans  and  lamentations.  We  remember  one 
despondent  Republican  assuring  us  that  in  case,  by  some 
shameless  trick  on  the  part  of  his  supporters  or  by  some  extra- 
ordinary intellectual  collapse  on  the  part  of  the  American 
people,  Cleveland  succeeded  in  making  his  way  into  the  Presi- 
dential chair,  we  should,  in  one  half-year  after  his  inaugura- 
tion, witness  the  unchecked  highway  robbery  of  the  rich  by 
the  starving  poor  in  the  streets  of  this  city;  while  another  de- 
clared that,  in  the  same  event,  his  own  accumulations  of  a  life- 
time of  honest  industry  —  which  were  considerable  —  would 
be  offered  to  his  friends  at  fifty  cents  on  the  dollar.  .  .  . 

What  is  most  curious  about  the  optimism  of  politicians, 
however,  is,  that  it  bears  very  little  resemblance  to  the  opti- 
mism of  private  and  business  life.  In  all  other  spheres  of  human 
activity,  while  the  cultivation  of  the  habit  of  cheerfulness  and 
hopefulness  is  greatly  commended,  nothing  brings  a  man  into 
more  disrepute  than  an  optimism  which  pays  no  attention  to 
facts  and  bears  no  relation  to  them.  In  business  a  man  who 
kept  saying  that  "all  would  come  out  right  in  the  end,"  and 
that  precautions  and  safeguards  against  failure  or  mischance 
were  therefore  unnecessary,  would  soon  cease  to  be  trusted, 
and  would  end  by  being  generally  laughed  at.  Out  of  politics, 
people's  expectations  about  the  future  are  expected  to  be  based 
on  reason  and  experience.  A  man,  in  order  to  be  respected  or 
confided  in,  must  take  note  of  the  fact  that  there  are  bad 
people  in  the  world;  that  health  and  character  are  exposed  to 
many  risks;  that  the  heart  has  many  deceits  in  it;  that  money 
does  not  come  when  it  is  looked  for;  that  all  trade  is  not  profit- 
able; that  railroads  sometimes  pass  their  dividends  and  default 
on  their  bonds;  that  banks  occasionally  burst  up;  that  sons 
sometimes  go  to  the  bad;  that  daughters  often  marry  the 
wrong  men;  that  sermons  and  briefs  have  to  be  carefully  pre- 
pared in  order  to  be  effective;  that  sick  people  have  to  be 
closely  watched;  that  surgical  operations  sometimes  fail;  that, 


174    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

in  short,  the  race  is  not  always  to  the  swift,  nor  the  battle  to  the 
strong  —  and  must  govern  himself  accordingly.  A  man  who 
does  not  do  so,  and  who  trusts  to  luck  in  the  management  of 
his  affairs,  is  said  to  dwell  in  "a  fool's  paradise."  When  Bishop 
Potter  gets  up  in  the  pulpit  and  reminds  us  of  these  things, 
people  say : ' '  What  an  excellent  discourse ;  how  full  of  wisdom ! " 
But  when  he  gets  up  in  the  rostrum  and  applies  to  political 
phenomena  the  lessons  of  ages  of  human  experience,  all  the  fools 
in  the  country  pop  out  of  their  paradise  and  say  that  his  view 
cannot  be  sound  or  useful,  because  it  is  so  "awfully  unpleasant 
and  gloomy,  don't  you  know." 

Human  nature  and  the  course  of  human  events  are  very 
much  the  same  in  politics  as  elsewhere.  When  that  egregious 
blatherskite,  Senator  Ingalls  of  Kansas,  in  his  famous  excision 
of  the  Ten  Commandments  and  the  Golden  Rule  from  his 
system  of  political  morality,  likened  politics  to  war,  he  forgot 
that  in  war  it  is  only  ceaseless  vigilance  and  remorseless  pessi- 
mism which  keep  an  army  ready  either  to  march  or  fight. 
Nothing  can  be  left  to  chance.  The  whole  day  and  often  the 
whole  night  have  to  be  passed  in  providing  against  possible 
crimes,  offences,  and  shortcomings,  in  dragging  abuses  to  light 
and  eradicating  them.  It  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say, 
indeed,  that  all  the  advances  the  race  has  made  in  civilization 
have  been  due  to  the  labors  and  sacrifices  of  thoughtful,  rea- 
sonable, and  public-spirited  pessimists.  The  optimists  in  every 
age  have  as  a  whole  filled  the  jails  and  almshouses,  or  lived  on 
the  bounty  of  their  gloomier  friends  and  relatives.  A  cheerful 
temper  and  a  hopeful  spirit  are  great  and  valuable  gifts;  but 
they  do  the  world  little  good  when  they  are  not  backed  up 
by  a  clear-sighted  perception  of  the  work  which  has  to  be  done, 
and  the  vigilance  which  has  to  be  exercised,  to  keep  us  all  from 
relapsing  into  barbarism. 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    175 

1891 

"Death  of  the  Republican  Party" 

The  Republican  party  came  into  power  for  the  sec- 
ond time  in  1889,  on  a  platform  which  proposed  two 
important  policies  growing  out  of  the  slavery  issues, 
both  of  which,  in  the  words  of  the  Nation,  were  contrary 
to  all  the  traditions  and  precedents  of  our  history  dur- 
ing the  century  from  Washington  to  Harrison.  One  of 
these  policies,  embodied  in  the  Blair  Bill,  proposed  that 
the  Federal  Government  should  assume  control  of  the 
schools  in  the  States,  by  making  appropriations  from  the 
Treasury  at  Washington  for  distribution  among  them, 
supervision  necessarily  following  the  appropriation.  The 
other,  the  so-called  Force  Bill,  proposed  that  the  Federal 
Government  should  assume  control  of  the  elections  for 
Congressmen  in  the  States,  such  control  necessarily  in- 
volving interference  with  the  supervision  by  State  au- 
thorities of  the  State  elections  held  at  the  same  time. 
The  Blair  Bill  had  been  rejected  in  March  of  the  previ- 
ous year,  the  Force  Bill  was  defeated  by  the  defection 
of  a  number  of  Republican  Senators.  Senator  Hoar's  re- 
mark, on  the  rejection  of  the  Force  Bill,  "That  means 
the  death  of  the  Republican  party,"  led  the  Nation  to 
say  (January  8) : 

Political  organizations,  like  individual  politicians,  often  do 
not  recognize  that  they  are  dead  for  some  time  after  the  event. 
The  Whig  party  really  expired  in  1852,  although  the  funeral 
ceremonies  did  not  occur  until  a  good  while  later.  In  like  man- 
ner, the  Republican  party  may  survive  for  some  time  as  an 
opposition  to  the  apparently  eternal  Democracy,  but  its  fate 
as  an  organization  based  on  the  slavery  issue  is  sealed.  There 


176    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

is  no  longer  any  "propriety  or  necessity  for  its  perpetua- 
tion." 

The  defeat  of  the  Blair  Bill  last  March  meant  that  the  black 
man  must  "  take  his  chances  "  with  the  white  man  in  the  matter 
of  schooling.  The  rejection  of  the  Force  Bill  means  that  he 
must  take  his  chances  also  in  the  matter  of  voting,  like  the 
"Canuck"  in  New  England,  the  "Dago"  in  New  York  City, 
the  Pole  in  the  manufacturing  cities  of  Pennsylvania,  or  the 
Scandinavian  in  the  agricultural  regions  of  the  Northwest. 
"When  a  man  has  emerged  from  slavery,"  said  truly  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  United  States  in  annulling  for  unconstitu- 
tionality the  Civil-Rights  Act,  "and  by  the  aid  of  beneficent 
legislation  has  shaken  off  the  inseparable  concomitants  of  that 
state,  there  must  be  some  stage  in  the  progress  of  his  elevation 
when  he  takes  the  rank  of  a  mere  citizen,  and  ceases  to  be  the 
special  favorite  of  the  laws,  and  when  his  rights  as  a  citizen  or 
a  man  are  to  be  protected  in  the  ordinary  modes  by  which 
other  men's  rights  are  protected." 

The  rejection  of  the  Force  Bill  means  that  this  "stage"  has 
been  reached,  and  consequently  that "  the  mission  of  the  Repub- 
lican party  has  been  discharged."  The  future  of  political  organ- 
izations cannot  be  forecast,  but  Senator  Hoar  is  right  in  regard- 
ing Monday's  action  in  the  Senate  as  ending  a  chapter  in  our 
history. 

1892 

The  Proper  Work  of  the  City  Club 

The  establishment  of  the  new  City  Club,  as  a  perma- 
nent organization  to  promote  good  municipal  govern- 
ment, was  hailed  by  patriotic  citizens  as  a  most  promising 
sign  of  awakening  civic  pride.  Mr.  James  C.  Carter,  at 
the  meeting  which  inaugurated  the  organization,  traced 
out  in  a  general  way  the  programme  of  the  Club's  work. 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    177 

The  Nation,  while  in  full  accord  with  Mr.  Carter  on  the 
main  points  of  his  address,  took  exception  to  his  remark 
urging  upon  the  Club  to  avoid  "personalities"  and  con- 
fine itself  to  the  task  of  showing  up  the  iniquity  of  the 
Tammany  "system." 

We  make  bold  to  say  [answered  the  Nation,  April  21]  that  if 
the  City  Club  fails  in  the  vigorous  and  constant  use  of  person- 
alities, it  will  fail  altogether  to  do  the  work  it  has  set  before 
itself.  Personalities  have  got  a  bad  name  because  they  are  too 
frequently  used  in  lieu  of  argument  concerning  matters  of 
opinion.  But  the  fight  against  Tammany  Hall,  wherein,  as 
Mr.  Hewitt  well  pointed  out,  the  work  of  reform  in  this  city 
must  mainly  consist,  does  not  arise  out  of  differences  of  opinion 
among  honest  men.  This  city  is  badly  governed  owing  to  the 
bad  conduct  of  certain  men,  and  owing  to  nothing  else  under 
heaven.  The  "system,"  in  so  far  as  they  have  one,  differs  in 
no  respect  from  the  distribution  of  parts  which  conspirators 
always  have  to  make  when  they  undertake  to  rob  a  bank. 
Some  watch  on  the  sidewalk,  some  inside  the  door,  one  holds 
the  lantern,  another  plies  the  cold  chisel,  and  another  puts  the 
dynamite  in  the  hole.  All  concerted  action  among  criminals, 
as  among  honest  men,  needs  a  system,  but  no  denunciation  of 
the  system  will  ever  do  anything  to  bring  the  criminals  to 
justice. 

If  the  Club  go  about  among  the  workingmen  of  this  city, 
refraining  from  hard  words  about  the  Tammany  leaders  and 
expending  all  the  invective  simply  on  the  Tammany  Society  as 
an  objectionable  organization,  they  will  accomplish  nothing; 
the  plain  voters  will  soon  tire  of  their  preaching.  The  plan  of 
taking  pledges  in  order  to  secure  election  has  nothing  objec- 
tionable in  it  per  se.  Such  pledges  are  exacted  in  all  parliamen- 
tary countries  from  candidates  for  all  sorts  of  offices.  The 
reformers  demand  them  just  as  much  as  the  Tammany  men. 


178    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

They  reflect  no  discredit  either  on  those  who  exact  them  or 
those  who  give  them.  The  City  Club  will  have  to  extort  them 
vigorously  from  candidates  for  municipal  offices,  as  well  as  from 
candidates  for  the  Legislature,  if  it  means  to  make  an  impres- 
sion. Each  pledge  must  be  judged  on  its  own  merits,  and  by  its 
nature  we  must  judge  the  man  who  makes  it.  There  was,  for  in- 
stance, no  harm  in  Mayor  Grant's  pledging  himself  before  elec- 
tion to  appoint  certain  men  to  office.  What  concerns  the  public, 
and  what  will  concern  the  City  Club,  is  what  kind  of  men  he  did 
appoint  in  execution  of  these  pledges.  This  shows  us  at  once 
the  use,  the  necessity,  for  personality.  No  system,  no  plan  of 
action,  comes  down  out  of  the  sky.  Men  make  systems  to  suit 
their  needs.  If  they  make  them  for  bad  ends,  they  are  bad  men. 
If  Grant  uses  his  appointing  power  to  put  grossly  unfit  men  on 
the  police  bench,  for  instance,  what  do  we  care  whether  it  is 
done  under  pledge  or  out  of  his  own  head?  What  would  be 
the  use  in  asking  him?  In  either  case  it  shows  his  unfitness  for 
the  Mayoralty,  and  it  thus  would  become  the  business  of  the 
Club  to  denounce  him,  not  as  A  or  C  or  X,  or  as  a  "System," 
but  as  Hugh  J.  Grant,  guilty  of  gross  offences  against  the  pub- 
lic weal.  It  was  not  a  system  which  robbed  the  city  in  1870. 
It  was  certain  individuals  named  William  M.  Tweed,  Richard 
B.  Connolly,  and  others,  and  the  work  of  reform  consisted  in 
catching,  trying,  and  punishing  them,  and  using  them  by  name 
to  enlighten  the  public  judgment  and  sharpen  the  public 
conscience. 

Mr.  Cleveland  and  Tammany 

The  full  story  of  what  passed  at  the  famous  dinner  at 
which  Mr.  Cleveland  met  the  Tammany  chieftains  was 
not  told  until  after  his  election  to  the  Presidency.  The  true 
version  had  long  been  known  to  the  Nation,  and  when 
the  details  were  published  it  remarked  (November  24) : 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    179 

We  have  known  all  along  that  the  revelation  of  what  passed 
at  that  dinner  would  reflect  increased  credit  on  Mr.  Cleveland's 
character.  We  have  never  thought  it  necessary  to  reveal  it, 
however,  even  if  we  had  felt  at  liberty  to  do  so.  To  have  made 
it  the  basis  of  an  attack  on  Tammany  we  should  also,  we 
admit,  have  considered  very  injudicious  on  the  eve  of  an  elec- 
tion, because  we  have  never  been  able  to  assimilate  the  great 
doctrine,  which  the  Republicans  formulated  after  Mr.  Blaine's 
defeat,  that  bad  men  should  not  be  allowed  to  support  a  good 
ticket.  We  believe,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  worse  a  man  is, 
the  more  desirable  it  is  to  get  him,  by  honorable  means,  to  do  a 
good  thing.  In  a  democracy  it  is  impossible  to  obtain  references 
as  to  character  from  voters,  or  to  make  up  parties  composed 
solely  of  the  pure  and  good.  A  political  party  is  not  a  church  or 
social  club.  People  have  to  be  let  into  it  without  references. 
The  one  duty  a  good  party  man  owes  to  a  bad  one  is  not  to 
bribe  or  mislead  him,  and  not  to  chase  him  away  from  the  polls 
by  insult  or  abuse. 

But  the  main  reason  for  keeping  silent  about  Mr.  Cleve- 
land's alleged  pledges  to  Tammany  was  that  a  defence  of  him 
against  such  a  charge,  by  any  one  who  respects  him  as  much  as 
we  do,  would  inevitably  have  the  air  of  an  imputation,  on  the 
well-known  principle  that  excuses  are  accusations.  Mr.  Cleve- 
land has  in  his  career,  and  especially  in  his  tariff  message 
and  silver  letter,  a  priori  protection  of  the  strongest  kind 
against  all  accusations  of  bargain-making  in  order  to  obtain  the 
Presidency.  He  has  already  furnished  the  strongest  possible 
proof  of  his  unwillingness  to  seek  the  Presidency  in  any  way. 
The  two  acts  of  his  life  which,  in  the  opinion  of  all  politicians, 
did  most  to  make  his  renomination  and  reelection  difficult  or 
impossible,  were  not  forced  on  him.  They  were  voluntary  acts. 
The  notion  that  a  man  who  committed  them,  with  his  eyes 
open  to  their  probable  consequences,  would  subsequently  sit 
down  and,  in  order  to  obtain  the  prize  which  these  acts  had 


180    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

put  away  from  him,  make  pledges  which  would  degrade  him 
forever  in  the  eyes  of  all  who  had  ever  honored  and  admired 
him,  was,  in  our  eyes,  too  absurd  to  need  refutation. 

To  the  question,  why  did  Tammany  then  support  Mr. 
Cleveland  so  enthusiastically,  if  it  was  not  to  get  the  kind  of 
reward  which  Tammany  most  values,  —  namely,  offices  and 
power,  particularly  after  it  had  so  strenuously  opposed  his 
nomination,  —  the  answer  is  very  easy.  Those  who  ask  it  appar- 
ently class  Tammany  with  the  Barnburners  or  the  Conscience 
Whigs,  who  bolted  under  the  solemn  obligation  of  patriotic 
conviction.  Tammany  opposed  Mr.  Cleveland  at  Chicago 
because  it  did  not  like  him,  but  it  supported  him  because  its 
present  managers  are  far  shrewder  men  and  take  longer  views 
than  John  Kelly.  They  want  to  maintain  their  standing  in  the 
Democratic  party,  and  get  a  hearing  and  have  some  influence 
in  future  national  conventions,  particularly  now  that  New 
York  is  ceasing  to  be  a  pivotal  State.  This  would  be  impossible 
if  they  kept  on  "knifing"  or  defeating  every  candidate  who, 
against  their  opposition,  had  secured  the  required  majority  in 
the  Convention.  If,  after  what  happened  in  1888,  another 
Democratic  nominee  had  been  overthrown  through  their 
treachery,  they  would  have  had  very  great  difficulty  indeed  in 
getting  a  chance  to  be  heard  and  to  vote  at  Presidential  con- 
ventions hereafter,  and  any  such  exclusion  from  the  national 
party  councils  could  not  but  tell  upon  the  power  and  per- 
manency of  the  organization  in  this  State  and  city. 


1893 

The  Ethics  of  Campaign  Funds 

The  appointment  of  Mr.  Van  Alen  to  the  Italian  mis- 
sion was  considered  by  the  independent  press  as  a  serious 
mistake  of  President  Cleveland's.   He  had  been  a  heavy 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    181 

contributor  to  the  Democratic  campaign  fund  and  pos- 
sessed few  visible  qualifications  for  the  position.  The  Na- 
tion, as  one  of  the  warmest  supporters  of  Mr.  Cleveland, 
felt  free  to  criticize  the  appointment  in  an  outspoken 
manner.  Being  asked  by  several  correspondents  whether 
it  held  the  position  that  the  contribution  of  money  to  a 
campaign  fund  ought  to  disqualify  a  man  for  office  in  case 
his  party  is  victorious,  the  Nation  answered  (October  12) : 

It  seems  at  first  sight  as  if  this  raised  a  difficult  question,  but 
the  practice  both  of  England  and  America  shows  the  question 
to  be  a  very  simple  one  and  easily  answered.  In  truth,  the 
English  mode  of  producing  candidates  for  high  office  leaves  no 
room  for  it  in  that  country  whatever.  In  the  first  place,  there 
are  in  the  diplomatic  and  consular  service  no  places  to  be  be- 
stowed in  return  for  electioneering  services  of  any  kind.  Both 
are  regularly  organized,  like  the  army  or  navy,  in  which  men 
hold  their  offices  during  good  behavior,  are  promoted  through 
seniority  or  for  special  service,  and  are  expected  to  possesss  a 
proper  equipment  for  their  particular  posts  in  the  matter  of 
language  and  experience. 

Every  now  and  then,  however,  a  man  who  is  not  in  the  regu- 
lar diplomatic  service  gets  a  great  embassy,  like  that  of  Paris, 
or  Rome,  or  Constantinople,  because  of  special  fitness  for  some 
extraordinary  crisis.  Lord  Dufferin  is  a  conspicuous  example 
of  this,  but  we  can  recall  no  case  when  such  a  distinction  was 
conferred  on  a  very  rich  man,  or  on  any  man  for  activity  in 
home  politics.  There  thus  remain  only  places  in  the  cabinet  to 
be  given  in  return  for  "heavy  checks."  But  in  the  first  place,  if 
any  English  minister  were  fool  enough  to  load  himself  with 
incompetent  rich  men  in  the  cabinet,  as  they  would  have  to 
maintain  themselves  in  the  House  of  Commons,  their  obscurity 
and  want  of  debating  capacity  would  cover  him  with  ridicule 
and  drive  him  out  of  office  in  a  few  weeks. 


182    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

In  the  second  place,  English  practice  ever  since  1688  requires 
candidates  for  high  office  to  have  served  an  apprenticeship 
either  in  Parliament  or  in  subordinate  offices,  and  to  have 
become  known  to  the  country  in  one  or  other  of  these  places. 
So  that  when  a  minister  comes  to  make  up  his  cabinet,  the 
possible  men  are  designated  for  him  by  a  process  of  selection 
which  has  been  going  on  for  years,  and  out  of  this  circle  he 
cannot  travel.  ...  A  man  in  English  politics  may  be  rich,  very 
rich,  and  give  freely  to  the  party  treasury,  but  in  order  to  get 
high  office  he  must  be  something  else  than  rich,  and  must  have 
made  himself  known  to  the  public,  as  well  as  to  the  ministers, 
by  the  display  of  some  kind  of  talent  or  acquirement.  To  take 
three  or  four  of  the  most  recent  entries  into  official  life :  Balfour 
had  been  fifteen  years  in  the  House  of  Commons  before  he 
became  Irish  Secretary;  Chamberlain  had  been  the  leader  of 
the  Radical  wing  of  the  Liberals  in  the  Midland  counties  for 
twelve  years,  and  had  won  great  distinction  as  a  municipal 
reformer  in  Birmingham  and  served  in  one  Parliament;  Bryce 
had  sat  twelve  years  in  Parliament,  and  become  famous  as  an 
author  and  professor  of  law;  and  Asquith  had  achieved  high 
distinction  at  the  bar  and  served  in  one  Parliament  before 
obtaining  seats  in  the  cabinet. 

The  process  of  selection  with  us  is  by  no  means  either  so 
elaborate  or  so  sure,  but  it  is  sure  enough  to  make  it  quite  easy 
to  avoid  mistakes.  In  each  party  there  are  enough  men  marked 
out  for  high  places  by  other  signs  than  wealth  to  prevent  any 
misapprehension  as  to  the  reason  for  appointing  them,  no  mat- 
ter what  their  contribution  to  the  campaign  fund  may  have 
been.  If  the  late  James  Russell  Lowell  had  given  $100,000  to 
aid  in  electing  President  Hayes  in  1876,  his  appointment  to  the 
Spanish  mission  would  nevertheless  have  been  universally 
recognized  as  fit  and  pure.  The  same  thing  might  have  been 
said  in  1884  if  the  London  mission  had  been  given  to  George 
William  Curtis.  No  gift  could  have  disqualified  Charles  Francis 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    183 

Adams  for  the  London  mission  in  1861.  Neither  Samuel  J. 
Tilden  nor  Abram  S.  Hewitt  could  have  unfitted  himself  for  the 
Treasury  Department  by  any  donation,  however  large.  It  is 
true,  we  freely  allow  the  selection  of  obscure  men  for  high 
places  every  now  and  then,  because  of  local  party  service,  or 
some  special  personal  relation  to  the  President,  but  it  may 
be  said  to  be  an  unwritten  popular  requirement  that  such 
appointees  be  poor  or  in  moderate  circumstances.  Much  toler- 
ance as  there  is  for  venality  of  one  sort  or  another,  the  Ameri- 
can people  are  not  prepared  to  allow  obscure  wealthy  men  to 
be  popped  suddenly  into  high  offices  of  state,  because  they  will 
never  believe  that  a  rich  man  of  whom  they  have  never  heard 
before  got  his  place  without  paying  for  it.  This  natural  and 
valuable  popular  distrust  must  be  taken  into  account  by  all 
Presidents.  It  is  the  salt  of  public  life.  It  may  be  the  salvation 
of  the  republic.  It  is  not  enough  that  there  are  other  reasons 
than  his  wealth  for  making  a  man  a  cabinet  officer  or  an 
ambassador.  They  must  be  patent  reasons,  reasons  that  the 
humblest  voter  can  see  and  understand. 


1894 

A  New  Era  in  American  Manufacturing 

The  mental  attitude  of  some  American  manufacturers 
as  the  day  drew  near  when  the  new  tariff  was  to  go  into 
effect  reminded  the  Nation  of  the  old  lady  who  crossed 
the  equator  with  a  nervous  clutch  on  the  ship's  rail,  to 
brace  herself  against  the  expected  jar.  They  had  been 
told,  so  often,  that  the  new  tariff  would  be  fatal  to  them 
that  they  half  expected  to  be  ruined  on  August  28,  no 
matter  how  prosperous  the  sea  through  which  they  had 
been  sailing  on  August  27.  The  Nation,  however,  did  not 
disguise  the  fact  that  many  branches  of  manufacture 


184    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

were  now  facing  a  new  era.  The  transition  was,  after  all, 
a  momentous  one,  and  the  revolution  manifested  itself  in 
striking  ways. 

Truths  which  [said  the  Nation,  September  6]  revenue  re- 
formers had  been  whispering  in  a  corner,  erstwhile  protection- 
ists are  now  proclaiming  from  the  housetops. 

Equally  refreshing  is  the  good  advice  which  trade  journals 
are  giving  to  the  manufacturers  within  their  special  provinces. 
They  are  at  last  beginning  to  appeal  to  American  inventiveness 
and  pluck  as  the  qualities  which  are  going  to  enable  us  to  meet 
our  foreign  enemies  at  the  gates.  The  need  of  establishing 
technical  schools  is  also  wisely  insisted  upon,  and  the  necessity 
of  putting  ourselves  on  a  level  with  foreigners  in  the  applica- 
tion of  science  to  industry.  Here  has  been  the  real  superiority 
of  the  foreign  manufacturer.  An  American  manufacturer  in 
straits  has  rushed  madly  off  to  Washington  to  get  his  duties 
doubled;  the  German  has  put  a  dozen  more  skilled  chemists 
and  Chemnitz  graduates  on  his  pay-roll,  despatched  polyglot 
drummers  to  all  parts  of  the  world  to  get  orders,  and  thus  been 
able  to  snap  his  fingers  at  our  tariff. 

That  is  the  kind  of  thing  that  the  American  manufacturer 
will  now  have  to  do.  He  will  have  to  conduct  his  business 
without  the  expense  of  a  branch  office  in  the  ways  and  means 
committee-room.  Instead  of  mortgaging  his  mill  to  defeat  a 
tariff-reform  Congressman,  he  will  mortgage  it,  if  necessary, 
to  buy  the  newest  machinery  and  latest  patented  devices  and 
to  employ  superintendents  who  know  their  business.  With 
free  raw  material  he  will  not  need  to  ask  favors  of  anybody,  or 
dread  competition  of  any  sort  except  the  competition  of  supe- 
rior skill.  If  the  Yankee  cannot  hold  his  own  in  that  particular, 
then  all  his  boasting  is  vain.  There  is  no  doubt  that  he  can,  or 
that  Mr.  Gladstone  is  right  in  predicting  the  transference  to 
this  country  of  the  industrial  supremacy  of  the  world,  when 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    185 

once  American  inventiveness  and  practical  skill  and  business 
talent  are  given  a  fair  field  and  no  favors. 


1895 
Jingo  Morality 


An  article  of  Captain  Mahan's  on  "The  Future  in  Re- 
lation to  American  Naval  Power,"  in  which  he  denied 
that  there  was  any  moral  quality  whatever  about  an  act 
of  international  aggression,  provided  the  aggression  was 
undertaken  by  a  superior  race  against  an  inferior  one,  led 
the  Nation  to  make  the  following  remark  (October  3) : 

Captain  Mahan's  chosen  example  is  the  British  occupation 
of  Egypt.  To  discuss  the  morality  of  this,  he  says,  is  "  as  little 
to  the  point  as  the  morality  of  an  earthquake."  It  was  for  the 
benefit  of  the  world  at  large  and  of  the  people  of  Egypt  —  no 
matter  what  the  latter  might  think  about  it,  or  how  they 
would  have  voted  about  it  —  and  that  is  enough.  Tacitly,  he 
makes  the  same  doctrine  apply  to  the  great  expansion  of  the 
foreign  power  of  the  United  States,  which  he  foresees  and  for 
which  he  wants  a  navy  "  developed  in  proportion  to  the  reason- 
able possibilities  of  the  political  future."  What  those  possibili- 
ties are  he  nowhere  says,  and  he  gives  the  reader  no  chance  of 
judging  whether  they  are  reasonable  or  not.  But  he  speaks 
again  and  again  of  the  development  of  the  nation  and  of  na- 
tional sentiment  as  a  "natural  force,"  moving  on  to  its  desired 
end,  unconscious  and  unmoral.  What  he  says  of  British  dom- 
ination over  Egypt,  Captain  Mahan  would  evidently  and 
logically  be  ready  to  say  of  American  domination  over  any 
inferior  power  —  that  it  has  no  more  to  do  with  morality  than 
an  earthquake. 

Of  course,  this  really  means  the  glorification  of  brute  force. 
The  earthquake  view  of  international  relations  does  away  at 


186    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

once  with  all  questions  of  law  and  justice  and  humanity,  and 
puts  everything  frankly  on  the  basis  of  armor  and  guns.  Fin- 
erty  could  ask  no  more.  No  one  could  accuse  Captain  Mahan 
of  intending  this,  yet  he  must  "follow  the  argument."  He 
speaks  approvingly  of  international  interference  with  Turkey 
on  account  of  the  Armenian  atrocities.  But  has  not  the  Sultan 
a  complete  defence,  according  to  Captain  Mahan's  doctrine? 
Is  he  not  an  earthquake,  too?  Are  not  the  Turks  going  blindly 
ahead  in  Armenia  as  a  "natural  force,"  and  is  anybody  likely  to 
be  foolish  enough  to  discuss  the  morality  of  a  law  of  nature? 
Of  course,  the  powers  tell  the  Sultan  that  he  is  no  earthquake 
at  all,  or,  if  he  is,  that  they  will  bring  to  bear  upon  him  a  bigger 
one  which  will  shake  him  into  the  Bosphorus.  But  if  there  is 
no  question  of  morality  involved,  the  argument  and  the  action 
are  simply  so  much  brute  force;  and  that,  we  say,  is  what 
Captain  Mahan's  doctrine  logically  comes  to. 

Another  inadvertent  revelation  of  the  real  implications  of  his 
views  is  given  where  he  is  dwelling  on  the  fact  that  "  the  United 
States  will  never  seek  war  except  for  the  defence  of  her  rights, 
her  obligations,  or  her  necessary  interests."  There  is  a  fine  am- 
biguity about  the  final  phrase,  but  let  that  pass.  No  one  can 
suspect  that  Captain  Mahan  means  to  do  anything  in  public 
or  private  relations  that  he  does  not  consider  absolutely  just. 
But  note  the  way  the  necessity  of  arguing  for  a  big  navy 
clouds  his  mind  when  he  writes  of  some  supposed  international 
difficulty :  "  But  the  moral  force  of  our  contention  might  con- 
ceivably be  weakened,  in  the  view  of  an  opponent,  by  attend- 
ant circumstances,  in  which  case  our  physical  power  to  support  it 
should  be  open  to  no  doubt."  That  is  to  say,  we  must  always  have 
morality  and  sweet  reasonableness  on  our  side,  must  have  all 
our  quarrels  just,  must  have  all  the  precedents  and  inter- 
national law  in  our  favor,  but  must  be  prepared  to  lick  the 
other  fellow  anyhow,  if  he  is  so  thick-headed  and  obstinate  as 
to  insist  that  morals  and  justice  and  law  are  on  his  side. 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    187 

This  earthquake  and  physical-power  doctrine  is  a  most  dan- 
gerous one  for  any  time  or  people,  but  is  peculiarly  dangerous 
in  this  country  at  this  time.  The  politicians  and  the  mob  will 
be  only  too  thankful  to  be  furnished  a  high-sounding  theory  as 
a  justification  for  their  ignorant  and  brutal  proposals  of  foreign 
aggression  and  conquest.  They  will  not  be  slow,  either,  in 
extending  and  improving  the  theory.  They  will  take  a  less 
roundabout  course  than  Captain  Mahan  does  to  the  final  argu- 
ment of  physical  power.  If  it  comes  to  that  in  the  end,  what 
is  the  use  of  bothering  about  all  these  preliminaries  of  right  and 
law?  They  will  be  willing  to  call  themselves  an  earthquake  or 
a  cyclone,  if  only  their  devastating  propensities  can  be  freely 
gratified  without  any  question  of  morals  coming  in.  With  so 
many  signs  of  relaxed  moral  fibre  about  us,  in  public  and  in 
private  life,  it  is  no  time  to  preach  the  gospel  of  force,  even 
when  the  preacher  is  so  attractive  a  man  and  writer  as  Captain 
Mahan. 


1896 

Bryan's  First  Candidacy 

Opposed  as  the  Nation  was  to  Mr.  McKinley  and  the 
Republican  platform,  it  did  not  hesitate  as  to  its  course 
after  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Bryan  for  the  Presidency  by 
the  Democratic  party. 

Mr.  Bryan  [said  the  Nation,  July  16]  was  not  a  delegate  to 
the  convention.  He  came  there  leading  a  contesting  delegation. 
The  regular  delegates  were  unseated  by  the  silverite  majority 
and  their  places  were  given  to  Bryan  and  his  crowd.  The  cheers 
that  greeted  him  were  the  measure  of  his  wind  power,  which  is 
immense.  The  measure  of  his  specific  gravity  is  to  be  found  in 
his  political  career  at  home.  He  was  carried  into  Congress  on 
the  Democratic  tidal  wave  of  1890,  was  reelected  in  1892,  and 


188    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

took  a  position  on  the  silver  question  so  extreme  that  he  split 
the  Democratic  party  in  his  State  and  lost  his  seat  in  Congress. 
In  1895  the  two  wings  of  the  party  in  Nebraska  ran  separate 
tickets  for  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and  the  anti-silver 
faction  polled  8000  more  votes  than  the  Bryan  faction.  The 
regular  organization  of  the  party  remained  in  their  hands,  and 
it  was  this  organization  that  was  cast  out  by  the  silverite  ma- 
jority at  Chicago  in  favor  of  the  bolters.  His  speech  to  the  con- 
vention was  an  appeal  to  one  of  the  worst  instincts  of  the 
human  heart  —  that  of  getting  possession  of  other  people's 
property  without  the  owners'  consent.  That  is  what  is  meant 
by  free  coinage  at  16  to  1.  All  business  and  all  obligations  rest 
to-day,  have  rested  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century,  on  the 
gold  dollar  as  the  unit  of  value.  It  is  proposed  now  to  sub- 
stitute a  silver  dollar  for  it  worth  about  half  as  much,  and  to 
make  this  depreciated  coin  applicable  to  all  existing  bargains 
and  contracts.  This  is  not  all.  It  has  been  alleged  over  and 
over  again  that  the  programme  of  the  silver  propagandists  was 
much  more  extensive  than  free  silver;  that  it  looked  forward 
to  free  greenbacks,  which  are  far  more  attractive  to  the  repud- 
iating tribe.  Mr.  Bryan  gave  warning  of  what  is  to  follow 
when  he  said:  "The  right  to  coin  money  and  issue  money  is  a 
function  of  the  Government.  It  is  a  part  of  sovereignty,  and 
can  no  more  be  delegated  with  safety  to  individuals  than  we 
could  afford  to  delegate  to  private  individuals  the  power  to 
make  penal  statutes  or  to  levy  taxes."  If  the  business  com- 
munity supposed  that  there  were  any  real  danger  of  this  dis- 
honest policy  being  put  into  practical  operation,  there  would  be 
a  panic  and  crash  the  like  of  which  has  never  been  seen  in  this 
or  any  other  country.  The  fact  that  business  remains  in  a 
state  of  quiescence  is  the  best  evidence  that  the  proceedings  of 
the  roaring  mob  at  Chicago  are  not  taken  seriously  by  the 
American  people. 

The  nomination  of  Bryan  for  President  of  the  United  States 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    189 

and  the  adoption  of  a  platform  of  repudiation  make  a  pitiful 
climax  for  the  Democratic  party  —  the  party  of  Jackson, 
Benton,  Seymour,  Tilden,  Cleveland  —  the  party  whose  boast 
it  has  been  that  it  always  stood  for  sound  money  and  never 
put  a  depreciated  dollar  into  the  hand  of  labor.  The  decadence 
of  the  party  in  the  past  few  years,  since  the  Tillmans,  Altgelds, 
Bryans,  and  Blackburns  came  to  the  front  and  took  the  leader- 
ship, has  been  melancholy  in  the  extreme.  There  are  signs  in 
plenty  that  nearly  all  the  men  who  give  character  to  the  party 
to-day,  successors  of  the  great  men  whose  names  honor  their 
country's  history,  will  repudiate  this  ticket  and  this  platform 
as  they  would  the  pest.  From  all  parts  of  the  East  and  from 
many  in  the  West  and  South  we  hear,  not  protest  merely, 
but  the  indignant  declaration  of  Democratic  leaders  and  busi- 
ness men  that  they  will  vote  the  Republican  ticket.  They  con- 
sider their  honor  and  their  means  of  livelihood  alike  involved 
in  this  battle.  They  find  something  of  higher  and  more  imme- 
diate concern  to  their  families  and  to  the  State  than  party  ties 
or  tariff  schedules.  They  will  vote  not  so  much  for  McKinley 
and  Hobart  as  against  Bryan  and  repudiation,  but  their  votes 
will  count  and  their  influence  will  tell  from  hour  to  hour  and 
from  day  to  day  till  the  election. 

Whether  the  dissenting  Democrats  will  or  ought  to  nominate 
a  ticket  of  their  own  is  a  question  for  themselves  to  decide.  Of 
course  the  main  thing  is  to  beat  the  ticket  of  the  Repudiators. 
Everything  else  is  insignificant  in  comparison,  yet  opinions 
may  differ  as  to  the  best  way  of  accomplishing  this  result. 
Our  opinion  is  that  the  sound-money  Democrats,  by  which 
term  we  mean  those  of  intelligence  and  substance  in  all  parts 
of  the  country  (in  South  Carolina  and  Texas  as  well  as  in  New 
York  and  Massachusetts),  will  vote  for  McKinley  and  Hobart 
whether  there  is  a  sound-money  Democratic  ticket  in  the  field 
or  not.  But  the  question  is  not  free  from  difficulty. 


190    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

1897 

The  Tariff  and  the  City 

In  discussing  the  chief  causes  of  the  difficulty  of  es- 
tablishing good  government  in  the  city  of  New  York,  the 
Nation  spoke  of  the  blind  devotion  of  a  considerable 
portion  of  the  Republicans  to  their  own  party.  These 
fanatics  have  again  and  again  acted  on  the  principle: 
" Perish  the  city  provided  the  party  be  saved." 

Now  [asked  the  Nation,  November  11),  what  is  the  expla- 
nation of  this  extraordinary  phenomenon?  Well,  it  is  far  sim- 
pler than  it  seems.  The  term  "Republican  party"  does  not 
really  mean  a  party  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term,  with  a 
body  of  political  doctrine  of  its  own  and  a  set  of  distinctly  de- 
fined aims.  As  a  party  it  does  not  differ  much,  if  at  all,  from 
the  Democratic  party,  barring  the  recent  adhesion  of  the  Dem- 
ocratic party  to  silver.  To  all  outward  appearance,  the  Repub- 
lican attitude  towards  all  questions  except  the  tariff  —  its 
view  of  public  office,  of  foreign  policy,  and  of  taxation  —  ap- 
pears to  be  substantially  that  held  by  the  Democrats.  The 
tariff  apart,  there  is  no  difficulty  for  an  honest  man  in  passing 
from  one  party  to  the  other.  He  might  any  day  doubt  to  which 
party  he  belonged,  as  far  as  opinions  are  concerned.  Even  as 
regards  silver,  enough  Democrats  to  enable  it  to  elect  its 
President  had  no  difficulty  in  acting  with  the  Republican  party 
last  year. 

We  are  thus  driven  by  a  process  of  pure  reasoning  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  proper  name  of  the  Republican  party,  the 
distinctive  aim  which  would  best  describe  it,  is  the  Tariff  party. 
Its  distinguishing  trait  is  devotion  to  the  tariff.  This  is  the  one 
thing  which  differentiates  a  respectable,  intelligent  Republican 
from  a  respectable  and  intelligent  man  of  any  other  sect  or 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    191 

creed.  It  is  by  this  trait  we  know  hirn,  just  as  an  early  Chris- 
tian was  known  by  his  refusal  to  sacrifice  to  the  gods.  It  was 
by  requiring  him  to  burn  incense  to  Jupiter  or  Apollo  that  the 
cruel  Romans  found  him  out.  In  like  manner  a  Republican 
would  be  found  out  by  requiring  him  to  curse  the  tariff,  or  say 
it  was  a  bad  thing  for  the  country.  He  would  sacrifice  him- 
self, his  aged  mother,  or  loving  wife,  or  innocent  children,  or 
the  city  of  his  birth,  sooner  than  do  this.  The  Republican 
party  is  the  party  which  has  the  tariff  in  charge.  To  weaken 
it  for  any  purpose  is  to  put  the  tariff  in  peril.  To  join  forces 
with  the  Democrats  or  Mugwumps  for  any  purpose,  is  to 
weaken  it;  therefore  "voting  straight"  becomes  the  most 
solemn  and  sacred  of  all  political  duties. 

We  shall  not  consider  this  so  very  extraordinary  as  it  seems 
at  first  sight  if  we  remember  that  we  have  now  been  living 
under  a  high  tariff  for  thirty  years;  that  during  that  period 
an  enormous  amount,  practically  an  incalculable  amount,  of 
money  has  been  invested  under  it  in  every  species  of  manu- 
facture; that  a  generation  has  grown  up  under  it  who  either 
owed,  or  believed  they  owed,  their  subsistence  or  their  com- 
fort to  it.  It  has  naturally  become  linked  in  their  imagination 
with  everything  good  and  "American"  in  the  world.  The  men- 
tal process  by  which  this  takes  place  is  one  of  the  most  famil- 
iar in  the  history  of  the  human  mind.  All  old  institutions  — 
the  old  British  Constitution,  the  old  French  monarchy,  the  old 
Catholic  Church,  the  Inquisition  even  —  got  support  in  this 
way  from  large  bodies  of  persons  who  had  been  born  and 
prospered  under  them.  If  the  tariff  had  failed  to  induce  large 
bodies  of  persons  in  this  country  to  look  on  it  as  the  source  of 
their  own  comfort  and  success  in  life  and  of  American  pros- 
perity, it  could  not  have  lasted  very  long.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
it  has  become  identified  in  the  eyes  of  such  persons  with  prop- 
erty and  order.  To  attack  it  is,  as  Sheil  said  of  the  enemies  of 
Catholicism,  to  "furnish  help  to  those  miserable  men  who  are 


192    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

the  enemies  of  human  hope,  the  apostles  of  desolation  and 
despair."  Its  safety  becomes  a  concern  so  weighty  as  to  make 
all  other  interests  seem  trifling.  It  seems  silly  to  talk  about 
city  government,  Tammany,  plunder,  or  dirt,  with  men  who 
you  know  cherish,  in  their  secret  hearts,  dark  designs  against 
the  wool  and  cotton  duties,  and  the  duties  on  knitted  goods 
and  other  textiles,  and  who  would,  if  they  could,  take  the  duty 
off  steel.  It  seems  like  discussing  alterations  in  church  ritual 
with  a  shameless  infidel. 


1898 

Experience  in  Governing  Colonies 

The  question  what  to  call  the  new  possessions  which 
were  our  inheritance  from  the  war  with  Spain  was  some- 
what puzzling.  Were  they  colonies,  or  "protected  ter- 
ritories," or  "our  island  domain,"  or  the  "new  era  of 
freedom"?  But  whatever  the  name,  the  problem  of 
governing  them  for  an  indefinite  time  confronted  the 
country.  How  was  this  best  to  be  done?  asked  the 
Nation. 

Experience  of  our  own  [it  said,  September  1]  to  guide  us  we 
practically  have  none.  The  continental  acquisitions  of  terri- 
tory once  Spain's,  which  we  made  early  in  the  century  and 
after  the  Mexican  war,  hardly  yield  us  cases  in  point.  There 
was,  indeed,  a  temporary  military  rule,  and  the  need  of  adapt- 
ing the  old  regime  gradually  to  the  new;  but  there  was  the 
well-grounded  hope  that  the  new  communities  would  speedily 
fit  themselves,  as  they  did,  for  admission  into  the  common- 
wealth of  self-governing  States.  Such  a  hope  can  be  enter- 
tained only  remotely  of  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico,  still  more  dis- 
tantly of  Hawaii,  and  by  scarcely  anybody  but  a  dreamer  of 
the  Philippines.    In  one  or  all  of  these  islands  we  confront 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    193 

problems  which  our  history  as  a  government  furnishes  us  little 
or  no  guidance  in  solving.  It  is  a  blank  page  on  which  we 
have  to  write.  One  may  search  the  revised  statutes  of  the 
United  States  or  the  acts  of  Congress  in  vain  to  find  direc- 
tions how  to  govern  colonies,  how  to  administer  distant 
islands.  Unless  we  are  as  cock-sure  of  our  ability  to  govern 
an  island  wisely  and  well  as  Sancho  Panza  was,  we  must  per- 
force turn  to  the  experience  of  the  great  colonizing  nations. 

Over  how  vast  a  period  and  through  what  a  diversity  of 
experiment  the  colonial  records  of  Spain  and  England  and 
Holland  run,  we  may  get  some  idea  by  looking  only  at  the 
bibliography  of  the  subject.  The  Spanish  Leyes  de  las  Indias 
are  a  tremendous  collection  of  mighty  tomes.  They  contain 
mostly  examples  of  the  thing  to  avoid,  but  they  represent 
centuries  of  labor  and  trial  and  hope  deferred  and  bitter  failure. 
The  Yale  Review  gives  the  figures  for  the  Dutch.  The  standard 
bibliography  of  the  literature  relating  to  the  colonies  of  Hol- 
land covers  the  years  1593  to  1865,  and  contains  21,373  titles. 
The  entries  under  Government  and  Finance  number  some 
5500.  A  supplementary  volume  for  the  years  1866-1893  has 
430  two-column  pages.  What  difficulties  to  be  surmounted, 
what  lessons  from  experience,  what  slow  and  intelligent  build- 
ing up  of  the  benevolent  disposition  of  the  Dutch  in  Java  does 
such  a  record  represent !  And  how  imminent  does  our  probable 
failure  appear,  in  going  forward  to  attack  more  diverse  and  more 
difficult  problems  of  colonial  government,  with  absolutely  no 
experience  to  set  against  this  secular  experience  of  the  Dutch ! 

With  Great  Britain,  of  course,  the  comparison  goes  still  more 
heavily  against  us.  In  England,  it  is  not  a  question  of  a  bibli- 
ography of  colonial  literature,  but  of  a  bibliography  of  bibliog- 
raphies. The  British  Museum  has  books  and  pamphlets  and 
documents  on  the  colonies  by  the  acre.  Blue  books  are  heaped 
like  Pelion  on  Ossa.  Reports  and  parliamentary  papers  relating 
to  the  self-governing  and  the  crown  colonies  would  make  the 


194    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

bibliography  of  bimetallism  seem  by  comparison  a  crackling 
epigram.  The  Colonial  Office  has  a  mass  of  information  and 
statistics  pertaining  to  the  various  colonies  to  which  the  very 
indexes  are  enough  to  appall  the  investigator.  The  bravery  and 
the  blunders,  the  greed  and  the  benevolence,  the  wisdom 
slowly  learning  by  experience  of  a  great  race  forced  by  its  posi- 
tion and  its  energy  to  extend  its  dominion  round  the  world, 
are  all  set  down  for  the  guidance  of  those  charged  with  every 
new  enterprise  of  the  kind.  When  England  annexes  Cyprus  or 
extends  her  protectorate  over  the  Sudan  or  Wei-Hai-Wei,  she 
has  not  to  fumble  around  to  know  how  to  govern  new  depend- 
encies. She  has  an  age-long  experience  to  teach  her  the  right 
policy,  and  a  trained  body  of  public  servants  ready  to  execute  it. 
The  moral  of  all  this  for  the  American  people  and  their  rulers 
is  obvious.  We  are  facing  administrative  difficulties  in  our 
island  possessions  with  which  nothing  in  our  experience  fits  us 
to  cope.  But  there  is  a  rich  and  instructive  experience  of  other 
nations  which  it  behooves  us  humbly  to  study.  With  the  full 
records  of  colonial  history  before  us  for  instruction,  it  would 
be  criminal  for  us  to  go  forward  as  if  nothing  of  the  kind  had 
ever  been  done  before,  and  write  the  blunders  and  the  cruelties 
all  over  again.  Two  chief  lessons  the  briefest  study  will  teach 
us.  One  is  that  the  colonies  must  be  developed  for  all  the  world9 
not  exploited  for  the  benefit  of  the  mother  country  exclusively. 
The  other  is  that  trained  officials,  appointed  for  merit  and  re- 
tained for  good  service,  are  absolutely  indispensable.  The  navy 
has  brilliantly  shown  us  what  a  thoroughly  trained  arm  of  the 
government  can  do.  In  our  future  colonial  service  we  must 
put  a  premium  on  such  training  if  we  would  look  for  anything 
like  such  success.  On  the  one  side  we  have  the  experience  of 
Spain  —  squeezing  the  life-blood  out  of  her  colonies,  filling 
them  with  a  corrupt  public  service,  and  leading  to  ghastly  wreck. 
On  the  other,  England  —  opening  her  colonies  to  the  commerce 
of  the  world,  administering  them  through  the  wisest  men  of  the 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    195 

most  inflexible  integrity  she  can  secure,  and  binding  them  to 
her  in  loyal  affection.  Which  of  the  two  shall  we  imitate? 


1899 

A  Fresh  Phase  of  the  Indian  Question 

It  had  long  been  apparent  to  friends  of  the  Indians 
that  the  reservation  system  which  the  Government  had 
spent  so  many  years  in  building  up  was  a  mistake.  At 
the  Mohonk  Conference  in  October  the  opinion  was  ex- 
pressed that  the  Indian  Bureau  ought  to  prove  a  super- 
fluity in  ten  years  if  Indian  affairs  were  managed  properly. 
The  Nation,  in  commenting  on  the  perplexities  of  the 
situation,  remarked  (November  16) : 

The  question  whether  to  begin  setting  the  Indian  free  is  no 
longer  before  us.  That  process  is  under  way,  and  already  so 
near  completion  that  we  are  faced  with  a  new  problem  —  what 
we  can  do  to  save  the  Indian  from  the  worst  consequences  of 
his  freedom.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  good  people  who  have 
his  welfare  at  heart  will  realize  that  they  must  now  turn  their 
minds  from  material  things  to  moral.  What  the  Indian  will 
need  most  from  this  time  forward  is  not  so  much  a  protector 
as  a  friend,  not  so  much  control  as  guidance.  The  day  of  the 
agent  and  inspector  is  passing;  the  new  day  will  be  that  of 
the  teacher  who  is  prepared  to  go  into  the  red  man's  home  and 
strive  for  his  regeneration  there.  Up  to  a  certain  point  it  was 
possible,  by  carefully  policing  the  reservation,  to  keep  whiskey 
out  of  it;  with  the  reservation  barriers  down,  whiskey  will  be 
as  free  to  the  Indian  as  to  any  one  else,  and  then  the  task  will 
be  to  teach  him  to  resist  temptation.  Idleness  was  the  rule  in 
the  reservation,  where  the  Government  fed  and  clothed  the 
Indian ;  labor  is  the  law  outside,  and  the  Indian  must  be  taught, 
at  the  door  of  his  own  cabin,  to  respect  and  practise  it. 


196    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

The  change  of  status  will  be  a  cruel  one  for  the  larger  part 
of  the  red  race.  Many  will  fall  by  the  way;  those  who  survive 
will  be  monuments  to  the  work  of  the  character-builder.  The 
period  of  Government  trusteeship  over  the  Indians'  lands,  as 
prescribed  by  the  severalty  law,  will  presently  expire,  and 
creditors  will  seize  upon  the  best  of  the  farms.  Many  of  those 
which  escape  private  greed  will  be  sold  by  the  sheriff  for  unpaid 
taxes.  Forty  years  hence  scarcely  an  Indian  may  have  an  acre 
of  his  allotment  left.  Much  of  the  money  now  held  in  the 
Treasury  in  trust  for  the  various  tribes  will  have  been  squan- 
dered, for  the  next  step  Congress  is  likely  to  take  is  to  divide 
these  funds  among  the  members  of  one  tribe  after  another  as 
it  emerges  from  the  old  order  and  is  absorbed  into  the  general 
body  politic.  When  the  last  acre  and  the  last  dollar  are  gone, 
the  Indians  will  be  where  the  negro  freedmen  started  thirty- 
five  years  ago.  They  lack  the  imitative  trait  which  has  done 
so  much  to  help  the  negroes  when  well  directed.  On  the  other 
hand,  they  will  have  the  advantage  of  the  freedmen  in  being 
too  few  in  numbers  to  become  an  issue  in  politics  or  to  sway 
State  governments;  and  this  difference  will  spare  them  many 
a  bitter  experience  on  their  way  to  a  higher  level.  It  is  plain, 
from  every  point  of  view,  that  the  work  of  the  reformer  in  the 
Indian  field  will  not  end  with  the  passing  of  the  bureau  system; 
it  will  simply  enter  upon  a  new  phase,  and  a  broader  one  than 
any  which  has  preceded  it. 


1900 

The  Enemies  of  Civilization 

The  supposed  massacre  of  the  representatives  of  the 
Christian  powers  at  Peking  started  a  cry  for  venge- 
ance which  all  sober-minded  Americans  deplored.  In 
commenting  on  the  barbarities  committed  by  Russian 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    197 

and   Japanese   soldiers    at  Tientsin,   the    Nation  said 
(August  16) : 

Warfare  of  this  kind  has  made  the  names  of  Attila  and 
Genghis  Khan  infamous  throughout  Christendom.  Such  bar- 
barities, when  committed  by  the  Turks  on  the  Armenians, 
raised  cries  of  horror  throughout  Europe  and  America.  But 
the  Chinese  have  none  to  take  their  part.  What  we  call  civili- 
zation is  arrayed  against  them.  Innocent  or  guilty,  they  are  to 
be  swept  away  in  promiscuous  slaughter.  The  soldiers  who 
have  been  guilty  of  these  cruelties  are  our  allies.  Our  own 
troops  must  march  side  by  side  with  them,  and  witness  their 
atrocities  without  interference.  We  trust  that  our  own  flag  will 
not  be  disgraced  by  the  active  participation  of  our  troops  in 
these  bloody  outrages,  and  that  even  those  who  have  been 
preaching  the  doctrine  of  doing  evil  that  good  may  come  in 
the  Philippines,  will  shrink  from  the  consequences  of  their 
principles  when  they  see  to  what  they  lead  in  China.  If  we 
must  fight,  let  us  not  fight  like  savages.  If  we  must  go  to  war 
to  defend  our  imperilled  citizens,  let  us  carry  it  on  like  civil- 
ized men,  and  not  in  the  spirit  and  not  with  the  methods  of 
the  barbarians  whom  we  are  to  slay. 

The  Japanese,  it  may  be  said,  are  heathens,  and  the  Russians 
only  half-civilized.  But  are  they  doing  anything  more  than 
the  German  Emperor  has  called  on  his  soldiers  to  do?  Is  there 
any  other  way  to  make  the  name  of  Germany  so  felt  in  China 
that  for  a  thousand  years  to  come  China  shall  never  dare  even 
to  look  askance  at  a  German?  The  Evening  Post's  correspond- 
ent in  Berlin  comments  mournfully  on  the  Verrohung  des 
Volkes.  Since  the  days  of  Jena  and  Austerlitz,  one  journal  de- 
clares, Germany  has  not  been,  morally  speaking,  at  so  low  a 
pass,  so  devoid  of  genuine  Christian  spirit.  But  the  press 
generally  comments  on  the  Chinese  troubles  with  brutal  cyni- 
cism.   "Not  the  question  of  right  or  wrong,  not  the  provoca- 


198    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

tions  suffered  by  the  Chinese  —  to  a  great  extent  from  the 
Germans  —  are  discussed."  What  will  benefit  Germany  is  the 
important  matter,  and  the  missionary  work  in  China  is  de- 
nounced as  detrimental  to  Germany's  material  interests,  and 
calculated  to  embroil  the  Powers  for  a  cause  which  has  no 
concrete  value.  We  cannot  call  the  Germans  uncivilized,  and 
we  must  act  with  them  now.  But  if  a  warning  against  entan- 
gling alliances  were  needed  by  our  people,  they  have  only  to 
consider  the  policy  in  which  they  must  participate. 

We  need  not  fear  to  be  disgraced  by  the  conduct  of  the 
British  forces,  or  by  the  spirit  of  the  British  Government,  we 
hope  and  believe.  Yet  an  Englishman  who  represents  the 
dominant  influences,  Professor  Edward  Dicey,  declares  himself 
in  favor  of  advancing  British  interests  everywhere,  at  the  cost 
of  annexation  and  at  the  risk  of  war.  The  only  qualification  he 
admits  "is  that  the  country  we  desire  to  annex  or  take  under 
our  protection,  the  claims  we  choose  to  assert,  and  the  cause 
we  decide  to  espouse,  should  be  calculated  to  confer  a  tangible 
advantage  upon  the  British  Empire."  Are  the  people  of  Amer- 
ica prepared  to  ally  themselves  with  Powers  governed  by  this 
principle?  Can  the  cause  of  civilization  and  Christianity  be 
advanced  by  governments  or  men  actuated  by  such  motives 
and  animated  by  the  passions  which  they  inevitably  arouse? 
No !  for  it  is  the  end  and  essence  of  civilization  to  repress  such 
passions  and  to  subordinate  such  motives  to  more  generous 
ones;  and  those  who  glorify  war  and  conquest  in  the  name  of 
civilization  are  its  deadliest  enemies. 


1901 

Tammany  and  "Respectability" 

When  the  inconceivable  happened  in  New  York  City, 
and  Tammany  nominated  as  its  candidate  for  Mayor 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    199 

Edward  M.  Shepard,  a  man  who  had  called  Tammany 
government  "the  most  insolent  and  audacious,  as  well  as 
the  most  reckless  assault  we  have  yet  known  upon  the 
welfare  of  Greater  New  York,  and  of  the  masses,  espe- 
cially the  less  fortunate  masses,  of  its  people  — "  the 
Nation  said  (October  10) : 

Any  man  asked  to  lend  his  honorable  name  as  a  cloak  for 
Croker's  foulness  ought,  at  least,  to  keep  his  eyes  wide  open; 
to  look  at  the  facts;  to  consult  the  past;  and  to  make  sure  that 
he  is  neither  cheated  himself  nor  willing  to  cheat  the  city.  For 
ourselves,  we  consider  it  impossible  that  a  respectable  man 
could  take  the  Tammany  nomination  for  Mayor,  as  things 
stand  in  this  city  to-day,  without  deceiving  either  Croker  or 
the  people  whose  votes  he  asks.  Richard  Croker  will  not  volun- 
tarily put  an  honest  and  fearless  man  in  the  Mayor's  chair. 
As  well  expect  a  thieving  bank  cashier  to  hail  the  arrival  of  the 
inspector.  Croker  may  easily  seek  the  aid  of  a  citizen  of  fair 
repute  to  aid  him  in  retaining  his  imperilled  power  to  prey 
upon  this  city,  and  plan  to  make  of  him  a  puppet  or  a  victim 
later  on;  but  the  devil  cannot  dread  holy  water  more  than  he 
would  a  Mayor  who  should  undertake  to  ride  with  an  eye  single 
to  the  city's  good.  Therefore,  as  we  say,  it  is  a  case  for  his 
nominee  of  playing  false  either  to  Croker  or  to  New  York.  No 
man  can  serve  those  two  masters;  and  however  high  his  stand- 
ards, however  praiseworthy  his  motives,  however  honorable 
his  purposes,  he  should  know  that  he  will  accept  a  Croker  nom- 
ination only  at  a  fearful  risk  to  his  own  character,  and  in  the 
certainty  that  he  is  inviting  a  renewal  of  the  city's  calamity. 

But  how  about  Mr.  Hewitt  and  his  acceptance  of  the  Tam- 
many nomination  in  1886?  This  is  the  instance  which  is  always 
cast  in  the  teeth  of  those  who  maintain  to-day  that  a  self- 
respecting  and  respected  man  would  no  more  think  of  fore- 
gathering with  Tammany  than  he  would  of  making  his  home 


200    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

in  a  lazar-house.  There  is,  however,  an  immense  difference 
between  the  case  now  and  the  case  then.  In  the  first  place, 
Tammany  was  not  in  1886  the  exposed  and  loathsome  thing 
it  is  to-day.  There  was  an  effective  Democratic  opposition  to 
it  in  the  city,  and  it  had  to  walk  with  some  circumspection.  It 
had  been  beaten  in  1884  by  Mayor  Grace.  Moreover,  there 
was  on  the  horizon  in  1886  the  cloud  of  the  Henry  George 
movement,  and  Mr.  Hewitt  thought,  as  many  thought,  and  as 
has  proved  to  be  the  case,  that  the  surest  way  to  repel  that 
thinly  disguised  attack  on  property  was  to  work  through  the 
Tammany  organization.  He  was  elected,  but  what  was  the 
result  of  his  attempts  to  give  the  city  good  government  in  and 
through  Tammany  Hall?  Any  man  trembling  on  the  brink  of 
a  decision  to  cast  in  his  lot  with  Croker  to-day  should  mark 
well  what  happened  to  Mr.  Hewitt.  He  was  thwarted  at  every 
turn  all  through  his  administration  by  the  men  who  had  pro- 
fessed to  seek  good  government  by  means  of  his  election,  and 
was  finally  repudiated  by  them  with  open  hostility  and  con- 
tempt. When  so  strong  and  brave  a  man  as  he,  so  far  back  as 
1886,  found  the  Tammany  opposition  to  decency  and  reform 
in  the  city  government  too  powerful  for  him  to  overcome,  what 
could  a  slighter  Mayor  expect  to  accomplish  against  the  Tam- 
many of  1901? 


1902 

Rewards  of  Public  Service 

President  Roosevelt  delivered  in  his  Doctor's  dis- 
course at  Harvard,  in  the  language  of  the  Nation,  a  sort 
of  extemporized  treatise  "De  Amicitia."  Friend  after 
friend  he  embalmed  in  the  amber  of  his  enthusiastic 
praise.  Long,  Moody,  Hay,  Lodge,  Taft,  Root,  Wood  — ■ 
each  of  them  became  as  if  a  Rough  Rider  in  the  Presi- 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    201 

dent's  affections.  And  he  seized  the  occasion  to  show 
how  ill  our  country  rewards  its  heroes  —  General  Leon- 
ard Wood's  case  being  a  notable  example  of  service  un- 
requited.  To  this  the  Nation  replied  (July  3) : 

Now  if  the  President  fairly  drives  us  to  inquire  what  reward 
General  Wood  has  actually  had,  we  think  it  can  be  easily  shown 
that  the  Republic  has  not  been  ungrateful  to  him.  The  esteem 
and  fame  that  have  come  to  him  have  certainly  been  such  as  to 
crown  labors  more  arduous  than  his.  Public  recognition  has 
not  erred,  in  his  case,  on  the  side  of  being  too  restrained.  He 
has  distinctly  been  one  of  our  heroes.  Mr.  Roosevelt  seems  to 
imagine  that  Americans  are  deficient  in  the  capacity  for  hero- 
worship.  On  the  contrary,  we  create  our  heroes  too  easily  — 
so  easily  that  we  recklessly  break  their  images,  knowing  that 
plenty  more  will  be  forthcoming.  But,  strictly  on  the  profes- 
sional side,  General  Wood's  advancement  has  been  phenome- 
nal, his  reward  glittering.  Four  years  ago  he  was  an  army 
surgeon;  now  he  has  been  promoted  over  the  heads  of  five 
hundred  of  his  seniors  in  the  regular  army  to  be  a  brigadier- 
general,  with  every  prospect  of  becoming  General  commanding. 
And  it  is  this  splendid  and  almost  unparalleled  rise  which  the 
President  intimates  is  meagre,  and  almost  offset  by  the  fact 
that  General  Wood  has  not  been  able  to  live  on  his  salary  and 
allowances!  What  the  General  himself  thought  of  pecuniary 
inducements,  compared  with  the  great  prize  he  has  won,  was 
shown  in  his  deliberate  refusal  of  a  civilian  position  estimated 
to  be  worth  $35,000  a  year. 

Nor  can  we  think  the  President's  implied  plea  for  immu- 
nity from  criticism  one  which  a  public  man  should  urge,  as  if 
such  immunity  were  a  part  of  his  reward.  No  might  nor  great- 
ness in  mortality  ever  escaped  criticism,  or  ever  will.  It  is  one 
of  the  necessary  incidents  of  the  profession  of  public  servant, 
whether  he  be  King,  President,  or  Secretary.  To  take  it  good- 


202    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

humoredly  is  an  important  part  of  a  statesman's  equipment. 
It  brings  no  dread  and  provokes  no  bitterness  in  the  real 
princes  of  mankind.  They,  as  it  has  been  said,  "gain  by  that 
scrutiny  which  would  kill  and  damn  lesser  beings."  It  is  no 
sign  of  lack  of  appreciation  of  its  great  men  that  a  people 
should  jealously  examine  their  public  acts.  For  a  democracy  to 
do  that  is  simply  to  do  its  duty.  At  any  rate,  it  will  not  be 
denied.  The  "many-headed  beast"  will  insist  upon  knowing 
all  about  the  work  of  its  rulers ;  and  if  they  are  too  thin-skinned 
or  too  haughty  to  endure  the  constant  peering  and  questioning, 
their  place  is  not  in  high  office. 

What  we  miss  most  in  President  Roosevelt's  ingenuous 
address  is  a  recognition,  which  we  should  have  expected  from 
him  above  all  others,  of  the  fact  that  true  public  service  is  its 
own  reward,  which  it  reaps  as  it  goes  along,  and  that  useful 
work  is  in  itself  the  source  of  the  highest  human  happiness. 
"There  is  no  fun  like  work"  —  that  discovery,  says  Walter 
Bagehot,  has  been  the  making  of  many  a  young  English  lord, 
who  has  found  that  Blue  Books  are  really  more  fascinating 
than  betting  books,  and  the  dust  and  drudgery  of  public  office 
more  attractive  than  polo  or  yachting  or  elegant  dawdling. 
That  is  the  truth  which  we  must  bear  down  upon  in  all  our 
appeals  to  young  men  to  enter  upon  public  service.  The  work 
to  be  done  is  the  thing;  and  the  exhilaration  of  pegging  away 
at  it,  the  joy  of  striving  and  the  satisfaction  of  accomplishment 
—  these  are  the  rewards  which  come  with  it  automatically. 
Any  one  minded  to  cry  out  for  the  "  stars  and  ribbons  and  other 
toys  with  which  we  children  of  a  larger  growth  amuse  our- 
selves," shows  thereby  that  he  does  not  know  the  true  zest  of 
public  work.  He  needs  to  be  set  down  to  read  Emerson's  essay 
on  "  Compensation."  The  only  rewards  worth  having  are  those 
which  come  all  in  the  day's  work;  and  the  public  servant  can 
hope  for  greater  rewards  than  the  common  man  only  as  his 
work  is  more  difficult  and  important,  calls  out  every  power 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    203 

more  fully,  and  sustains  with  a  larger  pleasure  of  struggle  and 
achievement. 


1903 

Growth  of  the  Labor  Controversy 

The  shifting  of  the  scene  of  the  perennial  dispute  be- 
tween capital  and  labor,  as  manifested  in  a  combination 
of  leading  employers  against  the  attacks  of  combined 
unions,  caused  the  Nation  to  remind  its  readers  that  the 
combination  was  not  wholly  new.  Several  years  pre- 
viously, the  employing  printers  of  New  York  City  had 
banded  together  in  such  an  organization  for  their  com- 
mon defence. 

The  point  is  [the  Nation  said,  July  2]  that  the  movement  is 
now  greatly  expanded,  and  promises  to  become  universal.  We 
hear  of  it  in  Pittsburgh,  in  Charleston,  as  well  as  in  New  York. 
It  is  extending  to  many  industries.  It  is  distinctly  the  latest 
aspect  of  a  very  old  quarrel. 

In  its  presence  labor  leaders  have  displayed  much  uneasiness, 
not  to  say  indignation.  This  idea  of  combining  was  really 
wicked  —  when  it  was  a  combination  against,  not  by,  them- 
selves. They  even  applied  to  District  Attorney  Jerome  to  pro- 
ceed against  their  employers  for  conspiracy!  But  he  quietly 
reminded  them  that  they  were  the  last  persons  on  earth  to  talk 
about  illegal  combinations.  In  reality,  they  had  no  reason  to 
be  surprised  at  this  final  resort  of  the  employing  builders.  The 
union  game  was  to  combine  all  the  building  trades  into  one,  and 
then  to  pick  off  the  separate  builders  in  detail.  It  was  certain, 
however,  that  the  process  would  not  be  allowed  to  run  a  long 
course.  The  employers  have  at  least  as  much  acuteness  as  the 
workmen.  To  deal  with  a  massed  body  of  unions,  they  simply 
devised  the  counter-union  of  contractors.   It  was  an  inevitable 


204    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

return  blow.  It  does  not,  as  we  have  said,  alter  the  fundamen- 
tal nature  of  the  everlasting  wage  dispute.  Indeed,  it  only 
brings  it  out  more  clearly  by  restoring  something  like  equality 
between  the  two  parties.  As  the  individual  employer  used  to 
confront  the  individual  workingman,  so  now  the  united  em- 
ployers face  the  combined  unions.  And  the  questions  to  be 
asked  and  answered  are  the  familiar  ones:  "How  much  can 
we  get?"  "How  much  can  we  afford  to  pay?" 

The  instructive  thing  is  that  none  of  the  changes  in  the  recent 
organization  of  either  capital  or  labor  have,  in  fact,  proved  to 
be  the  panacea  that  they  were  hailed  to  be  in  advance.  Labor 
unions  are  stronger  than  ever,  more  "federated"  than  ever;  yet 
they  have  only  called  out  a  stronger  force  on  the  other  side. 
The  deadlock  is  just  as  complete  as  if  it  were  one  man  striking 
against  a  single  master.  The  most  powerful  unions  have  simply 
learned  the  old  lesson  —  that  there  is  a  point  at  which  their 
excessive  demands  necessarily  break  down,  since  there  is  a  point 
at  which  the  owner  would  rather  see  his  business  go  to  wreck 
than  to  have  the  control  of  it  taken  out  of  his  hands,  or  to  sub- 
mit to  a  wage  scale  which  would  wreck  it  anyhow.  Nor  does  the 
cure-all  of  the  Trust  appear,  on  the  other  hand,  to  any  better 
advantage.  It  was  a  part  of  the  current  nonsense  about  Trusts, 
two  or  three  years  ago,  that  they  were  to  solve  permanently  the 
labor  problem.  We  now  see  that  they  have  rather  inflamed  it. 
In  the  first  place,  labor  leaders  have  been  quick  to  take  the  hint, 
and  to  form  a  Trust  of  their  own ;  in  the  second  place,  the  huge 
and  top-heavy  combinations  of  capital,  with  a  sensitive  stock 
market  attachment,  have  been  peculiarly  vulnerable  as  they 
have  been  especially  timid,  have  invited  attack  in  a  thousand 
ways  unknown  before,  and  have  helped  to  make  the  last  state 
of  the  labor  movement  worse  than  the  first. 

Both  sides  ought  to  learn  something  from  this  recent  experi- 
ence. The  unions  should  perceive  that  organization  cannot 
take  the  place  of  character.    Their  blackmailing  agents  have 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    205 

dealt  organized  labor  a  fearful  blow.  Until  it  abolishes  these 
arbitrary  and  corrupt  walking  delegates,  it  cannot  expect  to 
enjoy  the  respect  of  good  citizens.  Nor  can  the  corporations 
which  prefer  illicit  relations  with  labor  manipulators  hope  to 
fare  any  better.  It  is  well  understood  that  there  are  some  such 
in  this  city.  They  find  it  easier  to  have  a  regular  scale  of  black- 
mail, which  they  pay  the  walking  delegate,  than  to  insist  upon 
open  contracts,  lived  up  to  on  both  sides  to  the  letter.  Like  the 
corporations  which  pay  bribe  money  or  fright  money  to  Tam- 
many, they  would  rather  be  bled  secretly  than  fight  in  the  light 
of  day.  They  are  as  corrupt  at  heart,  and  as  dangerous  in  oper- 
ation, as  any  walking  delegate  or  Tammany  collector  that  ever 
took  their  money.  There  is  no  final  peace  to  be  had  in  the  busi- 
ness or  manufacturing  world  —  no  "peace  without  a  worm  in 
it,"  in  Cromwell's  phrase  —  which  does  not  rest  upon  honesty, 
fair  dealing,  and  the  looking  of  all  the  facts,  economic  and 
moral,  squarely  in  the  face. 


1904 
A  Transit  of  Idealism 


The  Nation  deplored  the  loss  to  Columbia  University 
through  the  retirement  of  Professors  Woodberry  and 
MacDowell. 

They  represented  [it  said,  in  its  issue  of  February  11]  a  defi- 
nitely artistic  and  creative  principle  that  contrasted  sharply 
with  and  did  something  to  redeem  the  pedestrian  scholarship 
and  dilettante  cleverness  which  rule  at  Columbia  as  elsewhere. 
It  is  unlucky,  too,  that  these  brother  artists  should  both  be 
leaving  because  they  find  the  tone  of  Columbia  uncongenial 
and  its  conditions  unfavorable  to  their  work.  In  Professor 
Woodberry 's  case  this  is  well  understood;  Professor  MacDowell 
has  not  hesitated  to  express  dissatisfaction  with  the  whole  ten- 


206    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

dency  of  the  University.  Culture  and  idealism,  he  asserts,  are 
generally  lacking,  the  administration  has  been  slow  in  effecting 
plans  for  organizing  a  school  of  the  arts,  the  students  are  gen- 
erally indifferent  to  artistic  matters,  and,  in  this  respect,  are 
graduated  mere  barbarians.  So  he  and  Professor  Woodberry 
feel  quite  justified  in  quitting  the  academic  ranks  and  dwelling 
apart  in  their  idealistic  tents. 

Evidently  there  is  a  larger  issue  here  than  in  the  question 
whether  these  gentlemen  are  justly  aggrieved.  Nobody  will 
doubt  that  their  analysis  of  the  deficiencies  of  education  at 
Columbia  has  truth  in  it,  though  the  wisdom  of  their  expres- 
sions and  the  necessity  for  their  resignation  may  be  questioned 
seriously;  and  it  is  certain  also  that  the  charge  of  undue  dis- 
regard of  the  arts  as  means  of  culture  lies  not  only  against 
Columbia,  but  against  practically  every  university  in  the  land. 
All  our  college  graduates  and  many  of  our  university  doctors 
are  complete  barbarians,  if  lack  of  intelligent  enthusiasm  for 
the  arts  is  to  serve  as  criterion  of  barbarism.  In  nearly  all  our 
academic  communities  the  gentlemen  who  are  shaking  the  sor- 
did Morningside  dust  from  their  artistic  sandals  would  find 
themselves  equally  strangers,  speaking  a  language  hardly 
understanded  of  their  colleagues.  Our  colleges,  in  the  elegant 
idiom  of  the  Middle  West,  are  distinctly  not  "culture  shops," 
and  most  of  them  are  uneasy  residences  for  "culture  sharps" 
such  as  Professors  Woodberry  and  MacDowell,  with  all  respect, 
undoubtedly  are. 

Now,  the  colleges,  and  possibly  the  apostles  of  culture  too, 
are  the  poorer  for  this  unhappy  alienation.  The  education  car- 
ried away  by  our  average  bachelors  belies  preposterously  their 
degree  in  arts,  and,  furthermore,  it  ministers  only  very  inade- 
quately to  the  more  refined  pleasures  of  life.  But  these  ad- 
mitted shortcomings  are  not  wholly  the  fault  of  the  colleges. 
Sheer  poverty,  for  example,  confines  the  academic  diet  to  sub- 
stantial.  So  many  languages,  so  much  science,  must  be  pro- 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    207 

vided,  and  often  are  furnished  with  difficulty.  Superior  instruc 
tion  in  literature  and  the  fine  arts  is  as  little  practicable  at 
many  of  our  colleges  as  beautiful  wood-carving  in  a  log-cabin 
rising  against  imminent  winter.  And,  of  course,  we  can  teach 
only  such  students  as  will  come,  and  man  our  faculties  with 
such  scholars  as  may  be  had.  To  desire  that  Professor  Norton 
or  Professor  Woodberry  should  be  infinitely  subdivided  and 
distributed  impartially  to  our  academic  commonwealth,  is  to 
wish  the  excellent,  but  the  impossible.  And  we  cannot  so  much 
as  be  certain  that  either  would  really  like  to  be  broadcast 
though  culture  were  the  gainer. 

Mr.  Hanna"  s  Public  Career 

The  death  of  Senator  Hanna  was  made  the  subject  of 
many  appreciative  remarks  in  the  press.  This,  the 
Nation  said,  was  easily  explainable  in  the  case  of  so 
affable  and  essentially  kindly  a  man,  who  made  friends 
easily,  and  bound  multitudes  to  him  in  many  ways.  But, 
the  Nation  inquired,  what  type  of  a  political  leader  was 
he?  What  counsel  does  his  example  speak  to  young  men 
ambitious  to  do  some  service  to  the  State?  To  these 
questions  there  could  be  but  one  answer. 

We  can  see  pretty  clearly  now  [the  Nation  remarked,  Febru- 
ary 18]  what  will  be  perfectly  distinct  to  the  acute  historian  in 
the  future,  that  Mr.  Hanna  was  the  full  flower  of  the  spirit  of 
commercialism  in  politics.  He  was,  in  this,  but  the  child  of  his 
epoch.  That  was  the  reason  of  his  success.  He  best  embodied 
the  tendency  of  the  years  in  which  he  was  militant.  It  was  in 
Senator  Hanna  that  the  grosser  and  more  repulsive  policies  of 
his  own  party  beheld  themselves  as  in  a  mirror.  What  was 
everywhere  latent,  he  caught  up  and  flashed  forth.  The  apolo- 
gies of  others  became  his  defiances;  what  they  deprecated,  even 
while  profiting  by,  he  gloried  in.  To  invest  money  in  politics  as 


208    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

in  a  mine  or  railroad,  and  to  look  as  confidently  for  the  pecu- 
niary return;  to  appeal  for  votes  on  the  basis  of  the  sheer  mate- 
rial advantage;  to  cry  up  prosperity  as  the  be-all  and  end-all  of 
government;  to  vulgarize  politics  by  making  its  watchwords 
the  cries  of  the  market  and  the  slang  of  the  gambler;  to  make 
of  the  electoral  struggles  of  a  free  people  an  exciting  game  with 
huge  and  glittering  money  stakes  —  in  a  word,  to  put  mercan- 
tile methods  in  the  place  of  forensic,  and  to  hold  the  best  title 
to  office  to  be  the  fact  that  it  has  been  bought  and  paid  for  — 
this  was  the  great  political  distinction  of  Mr.  Hanna. 

He  set  about  the  first  election  of  President  McKinley  in  the 
spirit,  and  with  many  of  the  devices,  of  a  financier  planning  a 
vast  combination.  In  fact,  there  was  an  almost  ludicrous  re- 
semblance between  his  campaign  for  the  nomination  of  Mr. 
McKinley  and  a  skilful  reorganization  of  a  bankrupt  railway. 
Mr.  Hanna  took  up  a  Congressman  whose  private  fortunes 
were  shattered  and  whose  political  prestige  was  broken.  That 
looked  like  most  unpromising  material  out  of  which  to  create  a 
Governor,  and  later,  a  President.  But  Mr.  Hanna  saw  the 
financial  possibilities  of  the  situation.  A  political  reaction  was 
upon  the  country.  After  years  of  depression  a  promise  that  the 
people  were  to  be  fed  and  filled  and  warmed  was  sure  to  be 
fetching.  Mr.  Hanna  openly  dangled  that  bribe  in  the  nation's 
face.  He  set  in  motion,  certainly  in  1895,  probably  as  early  as 
1894,  an  elaborate  and  heavily  endowed  organization  to  bring 
Mr.  McKinley  to  the  front.  Just  who  furnished  the  funds,  and 
in  what  sums,  will  not  be  known  until  Mr.  Hanna's  private 
records  leap  to  life,  if  they  ever  do;  but  it  was  common  gossip 
in  advance  that  such  and  such  men  were  to  have  this  office 
and  the  other  for  subscriptions  received.  It  is  to  be  said  for 
Mr.  McKinley  that  he  honored  every  obligation  of  that  sort. 
Financial  good  faith  was  kept.  So  was  political.  Not  one  of 
Mr.  Hanna's  "original  McKinley  men"  went  unrewarded,  let 
clergymen  and  college  professors  protest  against  them  as  scan- 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    209 

dalous  ill-livers  if  they  choose.  The  whole  ante-convention 
campaign  was  tinged  with  the  merchandising  spirit,  and  after- 
wards every  note  was  met  as  it  fell  due. 

Things  fell  out  luckily  for  Mr.  Hanna  after  McKinley  and 
Bryan  were  fairly  in  the  field  in  1896.  The  contest  turned  into 
an  assault  upon  the  nation's  financial  credit.  The  result  was  to 
put  vast  sums  at  Chairman  Hanna's  disposal.  This  seemed 
necessary  at  the  time,  and  the  sound  principle  undoubtedly 
triumphed;  but  it  was  at  the  cost  of  a  frightful  extension  of 
commercialism  in  politics.  For  this,  Mr.  Hanna  was  too  much 
responsible.  We  have  heard  men  familiar  with  his  methods  say 
that  his  plan  was  to  block  out  the  contested  states  into  small 
districts,  and  coolly  figure  out  how  much  money  it  would  take 
to  make  each  safe.  All  this  was  bad  enough  at  the  time,  but  the 
doctrine  of  no  peril  without  its  price,  no  vote  that  could  not  be 
had  for  cash  in  hand,  secured  a  fatal  hold  and  was  applied  dis- 
astrously for  years.  It  rose  to  its  final  pitch  of  vulgar  effrontery 
in  the  Ohio  campaign  of  last  year,  which  resulted  in  an  attempt 
to  baptize  the  Republican  party  anew  in  the  faith  of  the  al- 
mighty dollar. 

We  wish  to  be  entirely  fair.  Prosperity,  rightly  conceived 
and  worthily  striven  for,  is  a  national  blessing.  We  do  not 
doubt  that  Senator  Hanna  really  wished  to  see  everybody 
busy  and  contented.  That  went  with  his  kindness  of  heart,  as 
did  also,  we  presume,  the  efforts  to  compose  labor  troubles 
to  which  he  gave  so  much  time  and  energy.  But  it  was  his 
misfortune  to  seem  to  make  meat  more  than  life.  He  identified 
his  name  with  lavish  and  wasteful  policies.  Politico-financial 
promoters  swarmed  about  him,  as  did  also  the  unscrupulous 
politicians  of  whom  he  made  use,  and  by  whom  he  thought  it 
a  point  of  honor  to  stand  in  all  their  detected  knaveries.  Thus 
he  exactly  typified  the  baser  tendencies  of  his  party  and  his 
day.  We  had  loud  praises  from  him  of  the  full  dinner-pail  and 
the  swollen  bank  account,  with  money  enough  in  the  Treasury 


210    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

for  every  schemer;  but  when  did  he  ever  speak  an  echoing  word 
for  human  liberty,  or  show  that  national  honor  was  dearer  to 
him  than  the  jingling  of  the  guinea,  or  separate  himself  from 
the  category  of  those  who,  in  Puritan  phrase,  "make  Religion 
as  twelve  and  the  World  as  thirteen"?  Mr.  Hanna  was  a 
master  of  legions  of  "negro  delegates,"  but  real  sympathy 
with  the  struggles  of  black  men  to  rise  he  never  betrayed  in 
public.  Asked  last  summer  what  was  the  intent  of  the  Ohio 
plank  about  negro  suffrage  in  the  South,  he  replied  that  he  was 
against  having  the  party  really  take  up  that  issue,  and  added, 
in  the  most  matter-of-fact  way,  "There  are  25,000  negroes  in 
Ohio  whose  votes  we  want." 

Senator  Hanna  rose  as  high  as  such  a  man  could  go  in  this 
country.  It  is  unavailing  for  his  friends  to  speak  of  what 
might  have  been  had  he  lived  —  of  disappointed  ambitions. 
Verily,  he  had  his  reward.  His  support  by  the  men  who  are  in 
politics  for  the  money  they  can  make,  and  by  the  grand  army 
of  corrupt  politicians,  was  the  real  and  final  measure  of  his 
success.  The  judgment  of  the  people  is  just,  in  the  long  run; 
and  it  had  already  given  Mr.  Hanna  his  true  place.  A  skilled 
political  manager,  yes;  but  a  public  man  on  whom  Americans 
would  delight  to  bestow  their  highest  honors?  Never. 


1905 
John  Hay 


The  most  marked  characteristic  of  one  of  the  ablest 
of  all  our  Secretaries  of  State  was,  in  the  opinion  of  the 
Nation  (July  6),  a  certain  literary  or  artistic  flavor,  an 
irrepressible  "amateur  spirit,"  which  gave  a  refreshingly 
personal  tinge  to  his  public  policies.  His  training  for  the 
post  he  finally  attained  and  adorned  was  of  the  most 
thorough. 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    211 

The  young  Brown  graduate  and  member  of  the  bar  of  Illi- 
nois who,  in  1861,  became  Lincoln's  private  secretary,  was 
immediately  thrust  into  the  minutiae  of  civil  and  military  ad- 
ministration under  the  care  of  a  great  statesman.  Whatever 
dose  of  diplomacy  went  with  the  private  secretaryship  was 
confirmed  by  experience  as  secretary  of  legation  at  Paris  and 
Madrid  and  charge  d'affairs  at  Vienna.  It  is  needless  to  say 
that  the  spade  work  of  diplomacy  is  done  not  by  the  ambas- 
sadors, but  by  their  secretaries.  John  Hay  could  have  had  no 
better  discipline.  Furthermore,  his  Paris  incumbency  fell  at 
the  time  when  Louis  Napoleon's  "principle  of  nationalities" 
was  stirring  all  Europe.  From  the  vantage  point  of  Paris  the 
young  secretary  saw  the  seizure  of  the  Danish  Duchies  and 
the  humiliation  of  Austria  by  Prussia,  the  expulsion  of  the 
French  from  Mexico,  and  the  assembly  of  Karl  Marx's  first 
congress  of  International  Socialists  at  Geneva.  Within  his 
short  term  at  Vienna  fell  Deak's  reconstruction  of  the  Austrian 
Empire  on  a  basis  of  dualism,  the  liberation  of  Servia,  and  the 
abolition  of  the  Japanese  Shogunate.  His  brief  "Castilian 
Days"  followed  Marshal  Prim's  republic,  and  witnessed  the 
reestablishment  of  the  Bourbons  and  the  beginning  of  Presi- 
dent Grant's  negotiations  for  the  annexation  of  San  Domingo 
—  the  true  precursor  of  the  expansionist  policy  which  Mr. 
Hay  was  later  to  direct. 

Evidently  here  was  a  matter  to  kindle  the  diplomatic  imagi- 
nation. And  Mr.  Hay  had  had  enough  of  it,  for  he  contented 
himself  for  several  years  with  being  the  chief  editorial  writer 
for  the  Tribune,  and  its  acting  editor  for  a  period,  and  with 
outbidding  Bret  Harte  in  narrative  verse  and  Bayard  Taylor 
in  descriptive  prose.  After  a  digression  given  to  journalism, 
literature,  and  the  extension  of  valuable  social  relations,  Mr. 
Hay  completed  his  diplomatic  education  by  two  years  of 
service  as  First  Assistant  Secretary  of  State  to  Evarts,  1879- 
1881,  thus  learning  the  routine  of  the  department  he  so  bril- 


212    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

liantly  conducted  twenty  years  later.  The  portentous  task  of 
writing,  with  Colonel  Nicolay,  the  ten  volumes  of  the  "Life  of 
Lincoln"  must  be  counted  as  a  labor  of  love,  since  Mr.  Hay, 
through  a  marriage  fortunate  in  all  respects,  had  long  been  be- 
yond the  need  of  money-getting.  His  great  opportunity  came 
in  the  election  of  Mr.  McKinley,  who  was  doubly  bound  to  Mr. 
Hay  by  personal  friendship  and  by  material  benefactions. 

As  Ambassador  to  England  Mr.  Hay's  success  was  personal 
rather  than  diplomatic,  but  as  Secretary  of  State,  since  1898, 
his  peculiar  abilities  have  gained  world-wide  recognition.  It 
was  typical  of  his  manner  of  thought  that  the  sensational 
episode  of  the  siege  of  the  Peking  legation  did  not  suggest 
spectacular  vindication  of  national  honor,  but  hastened  the 
execution  of  a  humane  plan,  previously  conceived,  for  the 
rehabilitation  of  the  troubled  Empire.  By  patient  consultation 
with  the  European  Powers  he  succeeded  in  imposing  the  prin- 
ciple that  China  was  no  longer  a  field  for  spoliation,  but  was 
to  be  open  on  equal  terms  to  the  trade  of  the  world,  and  was 
to  have  its  opportunity  for  national  reform  and  development. 
Mr.  Hay's  circular  notes  on  the  Manchuria  question  were  the 
object  of  some  mockery,  as  merely  academic.  That  tone  has 
changed  since  it  has  been  perceived  that  the  Japanese  triumph 
is  merely  one  interpretation  of  Mr.  Hay's  doctrine,  and  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  humane  mediation  between  the  combatants  an- 
other. These  facts  have  completely  borne  out  Mr.  Hay's  pro- 
phetic vision  that  the  Chinese  question  is  one  in  morals  as 
well  as  in  international  politics,  and  that  the  time  for  European 
aggression  has  passed. 

It  would  be  unworthy  of  Mr.  Hay's  own  great  achievements 
and  personal  candor  to  fail  to  point  out  that  he  had  not  only 
the  qualities,  but  the  defects,  of  the  amateur  spirit.  His  desire 
to  illustrate  his  office,  his  quick  imaginative  response  to  distant 
situations,  led  him  at  times  into  empty  undertakings,  like  the 
Rumanian  circular  against  persecution  of  the  Jews.  His  devo- 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    213 

tion  to  the  project  of  the  Panama  Canal  and  to  that  of  national 
expansion  generally  drew  him  into  more  than  one  equivocal 
transaction  in  the  national  behoof,  as  his  admirers  must  ac- 
knowledge with  averted  faces.  But  his  administration,  taken 
broadly,  was  characterized  by  scholarship,  dignity,  and  re- 
sourcefulness. In  seven  years  he  has  raised  the  State  Depart- 
ment from  a  condition  of  relative  provincialism  to  a  command- 
ing position  among  the  chancelleries  of  the  world.  Mr.  Hay  is 
most  likely  to  be  remembered  for  that  magnanimous  stand  in 
the  Far  East  which  stemmed  the  tide  of  brutal  aggression  upon 
helpless  China.  His  associates  and  our  generation  of  brethren 
of  the  pen  will  remember  with  most  affection  the  litterateur 
who,  amid  the  gravest  responsibilities,  vindicated  the  practical 
value  of  the  artistic  imagination. 


1906 

Immigration  and  the  South 

An  unprecedented  movement  for  the  encouragement 
of  immigration  to  the  Southern  States  took  shape  in 
the  sending  of  representatives  to  Europe  and  to  the  great 
cities  of  the  North,  to  study  the  immigrant  problem. 
After  dwelling  on  the  old  prejudices  of  the  South  against 
foreign  labor,  the  Nation  said  (May  17) : 

The  prejudice  on  the  other  side  is  perhaps  more  difficult  to 
deal  with,  for  there  are  very  few  means  of  getting  at  the  immi- 
grant and  persuading  him  that  the  South  is  the  place  where  he 
ought  to  go.  For  years  he  has  been  listening  to  another  gospel. 
There  is  truth  in  the  complaint  of  the  South  that  certain  States 
of  the  Northwest,  in  their  eagerness  to  advertise  and  populate 
the  wheat-fields,  have  sent  out  circulars  which  make  compari- 
sons unfavorable  and  unfair  to  the  States  below  Mason  and 
Dixon's  line.  These  advertisements,  together  with  certain  too 


214    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

well-founded  complaints  about  lawlessness  and  the  miscarriage 
of  justice,  have  helped  to  deprive  of  its  share  that  part  of  the 
country  which  most  needs  the  infusion  of  new  blood.  Yet  the 
immigrants  who  have  gone  to  the  South  have  succeeded  well. 
When  we  remember  that  the  entire  peninsula  of  Italy,  exclud- 
ing the  Alps  and  the  Apennines,  is  but  little  larger  than  the 
State  of  Georgia,  and  that  it  supports,  chiefly  by  agriculture, 
a  population  of  36,000,000,  we  can  see  why  newcomers  from  the 
south  of  Europe,  trained  to  methods  of  careful  and  intense  cul- 
tivation, should  get  ahead  in  a  region  where  the  farming 
methods  are  among  the  loosest  and  most  wasteful  in  the  world. 
Many  instances  could  be  given  of  the  achievements  of  adven- 
turous immigrants  who  have  disregarded  all  warnings,  and 
have  found  comfortable  homes,  hospitable  friends,  and  a  free- 
dom which  they  could  not  have  hoped  for  in  the  over-crowded 
cities.  A  colony  at  Ladson,  South  Carolina,  has  found  silk- 
raising  profitable.  Prosperous  Italian  and  Bohemian  truck- 
farmers  are  now  living  along  the  seaboard  from  Norfolk  to 
Jacksonville.  An  experiment  in  Alabama,  where  a  colony  was 
set  at  work  in  the  cotton  fields,  has  been  wholly  successful, 
and  has  shown  that  the  cultivation  of  cotton  can  be  performed 
by  white  labor  as  well  as  by  black.  In  the  South  more  than  one 
"model"  farm,  demonstrating  the  effects  of  intensive  methods 
and  hard  work,  is  in  the  hands  of  men  who,  though  industrious 
and  intelligent,  have  been  in  this  country  hardly  long  enough 
to  make  themselves  understood.  These  examples  of  adapt- 
ability, as  they  become  more  widely  known  among  immigrants, 
cannot  but  have  the  effect  of  turning  attention  to  the  South. 
The  importance  of  immigration  to  the  South  can  hardly  be 
overestimated.  The  population  in  many  districts  is  very 
sparse,  and  the  opportunities  for  development  of  agricultural 
and  mineral  resources  are  boundless.  For  this  work  there  must 
be  both  men  and  money;  but  if  the  South  can  once  turn 
the  tide  of  immigration,  the  capital  will  be  forthcoming  in 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    215 

abundance.  A  question  often  raised  is  the  effect  of  foreign 
labor  upon  the  negro.  If  the  South  carries  out  its  plan  of 
drawing  the  best  foreign  labor,  the  effect  upon  the  negro 
should  be  beneficial.  If  he  is  to  hold  his  own  in  competition, 
he  will  be  forced  to  improve  himself,  and  he  will  be  stimulated 
intellectually  and  morally.  One  reason  why  he  is  lazy  and 
irresponsible  is  that  he  often  regards  himself  as  not  a  direct 
competitor  of  the  white;  and  he  measures  himself  by  no  stan- 
dard of  achievement  except  that  of  the  shif  tless  and  ignorant 
of  his  own  race.  The  coming  of  the  immigrant  should  open  the 
eyes  of  his  mind  and  soul.  Placed  side  by  side  with  earnest, 
steady  workmen,  he  himself  should  reach  a  higher  degree  of 
skill  and  trustworthiness. 

From  every  point  of  view,  it  is  the  South 's  plain  duty  to 
itself  and  to  the  rest  of  the  country  to  correct  the  evil  impres- 
sions that  have  gone  abroad  as  to  its  conditions  of  life  and  the 
opportunities  for  tranquil,  profitable  livelihood.  In  order  to 
set  forth  its  manifold  advantages  the  South  must  employ  such 
businesslike  methods  as  have  been  used  in  advertising  our  own 
Western  States  and  the  Canadian  Northwest.  Keen,  alert 
agents  at  home  and  abroad  will  doubtless  obtain  desirable 
settlers  in  growing  numbers.  Above  all,  the  South  should  make 
good  its  promises  by  strictly  enforcing  law  and  protecting  all 
its  citizens.  Each  lapse  of  justice  and  unpunished  mob  rule 
will  keep  from  the  South  thousands  of  people  whose  coming 
is  ardently  to  be  desired.  Without  law  and  order  the  door  will 
stand  open  in  vain. 


1907 
Working  up  a  War 


On  the  announcement  of  Secretary  Metcalf  in  Califor- 
nia that  our  battleships  were  to  go  to  the  Pacific,  certain 


216    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

newspapers  were  ready  to  declare  war  against  Japan. 
We  saw  the  whole  process,  said  the  Nation  (July  11), 
illustrated  in  1895-98.  Yellow  journalism  scored  its 
greatest  triumph,  or  touched  its  deepest  shame,  in  bring- 
ing on  the  war  with  Spain.  The  methods  were  now  imi- 
tated, almost  to  a  hair. 

Your  truly  warlike  editor,  living  at  ease,  but  writing  as  if 
he  ate  gunpowder,  always  begins  by  protesting  that  he  ardently 
desires  peace.  He  merely  scatters  his  firebrands  as  "precau- 
tionary measures,"  setting  the  house  on  fire  to  test  the  efficiency 
of  the  engine  company.  Urging  the  doing  of  things  which 
breathe  of  war  and  look  to  war,  he  asseverates  his  conviction 
that  they  will  be  the  surest  guarantee  of  peace.  So  it  was  before 
the  war  with  Spain.  This,  that,  or  the  other  hostile  move  was 
declared  by  the  newspapers  in  charge  of  the  campaign  to  be 
the  one  thing  that  would  certainly  avert  war.  So  now,  the 
dispatch  of  our  battleships  to  the  Pacific  is  represented  as  the 
infallible  means  of  keeping  the  peace.  Yet  the  naval  demonstra- 
tion is,  at  the  same  time,  seized  upon  as  an  excuse  for  printing 
columns  and  pages  of  matter  which  can  have  but  one  aim  and 
one  effect  —  to  provoke  the  war  spirit.  Naval  experts  are 
called  upon  to  state  whether  the  fleet  is  "ready,"  and  whether 
we  could  surely  whip  Japan.  Then  there  are  gathered  reams  of 
stuff  going  to  show  that  "  Editors  Endorse  Plan  to  Send  Fleet 
of  Big  Battleships  to  the  Pacific."  This  is  got  by  scraping  the 
press  of  the  country,  and  erecting  the  Butte  Inter-Mountain 
and  the  Fort  Wayne  Sentinel  into  important  organs  of  national 
opinion.  Next  comes  the  assembling  of  "Public  Sentiment" 
as  expressed  by  "Representative  Citizens."  In  special  dis- 
patches we  are  informed  what  Michael  Ryan  of  Cincinnati 
considers  to  be  correct  naval  strategy,  and  what  Moses  H. 
Brand  of  Milwaukee  thinks  the  true  policy  to  pursue.  All  this 
is  churned  over,  or  whipped  into  froth,  day  after  day,  with  a 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    217 

result  which  is  often  comic,  frequently  ridiculous,  but  which 
remains  in  the  end  both  disgusting  and  perilous. 

Most  people,  we  know,  simply  laugh  at  all  this  newspaper 
dabbling  in  war.  But  is  it  not  dangerously  like  "the  laughter 
of  fools"?  The  fool,  wrote  Burne-Jones  in  one  of  his  letters, 
has  three  laughs.  "He  laughs  at  what  is  good,  he  laughs  at 
what  is  bad,  and  he  laughs  at  what  he  does  not  understand." 
It  is  this  latter,  empty  amusement  over  the  attempt  of  certain 
editors  to  "get  up  a  war  scare,"  which  is  really  disquieting.  It 
ought  to  be  better  understood  what  this  sort  of  thing  leads 
to.  It  poisons  the  general  mind  by  making  its  presuppositions 
warlike  instead  of  peaceful.  Men  and  nations  are  what  they 
are  largely  on  account  of  their  mental  presumptions,  the  atmos- 
phere which  they  unconsciously  carry  about  with  them.  This, 
in  an  industrial  democracy  like  ours,  is  normally  one  of  peace. 
Business  cannot  go  on,  nor  commerce  extend,  if  men's  minds 
are  fixed  upon  battles  and  sieges  and  sudden  death.  Hence 
the  need  of  cultivating  the  temperament  of  peace  —  of  teach- 
ing citizens  to  look  for  stability  of  conditions  and  for  orderly 
progress,  instead  of  being  on  the  watch,  all  the  while,  for  the 
shocks  of  war.  Hence,  also,  the  villainy  of  those  lily -fingered  and 
luxury-loving  editors  who,  either  to  glut  a  private  revenge,  or  to 
promote  private  financial  speculations,  or  perhaps,  merely  to 
make  a  newspaper  sensation  in  a  dull  season,  try  to  upset  the 
equilibrium  of  the  country,  and  force  thoughts  of  war  into 
minds  where,  but  for  this  wicked  newspaper  clamor,  they 
would  never  find  entrance.  Such  a  phenomenon  it  will  never 
do  to  treat,  with  our  easy  American  good-nature,  as  merely  a 
hot-weather  joke  —  to  pass  it  off  with  our  perpetual  giggle. 
Terrible  consequences  may  spring  from  this  criminal  trifling. 


218    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

1908 

The  Despised  Moral  Issue 

When  Governor  Hughes  won  his  great  fight  against 
race-track  gambling,  even  papers  which  had  not  sup- 
ported him,  like  the  New  York  Sun,  congratulated  him 
upon  the  triumph  of  his  "remarkable  patience,  uncom- 
mon vigor,  genuine  faith  in  his  cause,  and  magnificent 
perseverence."  The  Nation's  reflections  on  the  result  were 
as  follows  (June  18)  : 

The  time  has  been  when  the  Republican  party  would  have 
jumped  at  the  chance  to  get  such  a  man  to  lead  it  in  a  Presi- 
dential campaign.  But  it  is  jumping  at  command  in  another 
direction  this  year.  Because  Mr.  Roosevelt  had  a  personal  dis- 
like of  Governor  Hughes,  it  was  necessary  for  the  party  to  look 
elsewhere  for  a  candidate.  And  in  all  this  long  and  dubious 
contest,  wherein  the  moral  forces  of  New  York  were  banded 
together  as  never  before  and  calling  anxiously  for  recruits,  not 
one  word  of  sympathy  or  encouragement  came  from  the  State  s 
most  eminent  citizen.  The  Oyster  Bay  Republican  Senator 
voted  against  the  Governor.  The  President  was  prevented 
from  giving  any  aid  by  a  sudden  scruple  about  his  consti- 
tutional limitations!  Now  that  the  fight  is  won,  Governor 
Hughes  is  entitled  to  say  to  the  great  moral  warrior  of  the  age: 
"Hang  yourself,  brave  Crillon!  We  have  had  glorious  fighting, 
and  you  were  not  there!" 

Principles,  however,  overshadow  even  personalities,  and  are 
really  more  instructive  to  one  who  will  closely  attend.  Senator 
Foelker  may  cease  to  be  talked  of;  Mr.  Hughes  may  come  back 
to  his  law  office  (though  he  cannot  fail  to  remain  one  of  our 
chief  national  assets);  but  the  great  political  teaching  of  this 
wonderful  campaign  will  abide.  It  is  that  there  is  no  force  so 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    219 

potent  in  politics  as  a  moral  issue.  Politicians  may  scorn  it, 
ambitious  men  may  despise  it  or  fight  shy  of  it,  newspapers 
may  caricature  or  misrepresent  it;  but  it  has  a  way  of  con- 
founding the  plans  of  those  who  pride  themselves  on  their  as- 
tuteness, and  rendering  powerless  the  most  formidable  enginery 
of  party  or  boss.  This  was  the  secret  of  Governor  Hughes's 
strength  in  his  single-handed  contest.  He  flung  himself  boldly 
upon  the  moral  sentiment  of  the  State.  He  was  able  to  pierce  to 
the  popular  conscience.  His  own  unselfishness  being  transpar- 
ent as  the  day,  his  refusal  to  wage  anything  but  an  open  and 
honorable  warfare  being  absolute  and  unquestioned,  his  steady 
insistence  upon  the  fundamental  morality  of  his  cause  was 
what  swung  the  State  to  him,  and  compelled  the  Legislature  to 
bow  before  a  greater  power  than  itself. 

The  occasional  winning  of  such  moral  victories  in  public  life 
is  as  bracing  as  a  breath  from  the  north  in  summer.  It  helps  to 
keep  alive  the  belief  in  the  sound  instincts  and  the  sure  prog- 
ress of  democracy.  The  philosophic  Italian  writer,  Guglielmo 
Ferrero,  has  recently  been  pointing  out  the  contradictory  ideas 
about  progress  in  civilization.  He  makes  the  point  that  if  mod- 
ern nations  are  not  to  be  driven  to  ennui  or  decadence  by  the 
very  success  of  a  material  civilization,  they  must  have  the  tonic 
of  struggle  for  moral  improvement.  It  is,  therefore,  both  reas- 
suring and  heartening  when  a  man  can  go  as  Governor  Hughes 
has  done  before  a  great  democratic  community,  with  a  single 
and  naked  question  of  morality,  and  get  such  an  overwhelming 
response.  He  has  uncovered  a  political  power  of  which  the  pro- 
fessional manipulators  of  elections  and  legislatures  are  ignorant. 
But,  then,  it  is  an  old  reproach  against  politicians  that  they  do 
not  know  their  own  trade.  In  the  midst  of  their  sneers  at  a 
moral  issue  and  at  "  Charles  the  Evangelist,"  they  found  them- 
selves swept  away  by  a  mighty  force  which  they  had  no  means 
of  either  measuring  or  resisting. 


220    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

1909 

Republican  Tariff  Reduction 

March  15,  1909,  deserved,  in  the  words  of  the  Nation, 
to  rank  among  memorable  dates.  It  was  the  day  on 
which  the  Republican  party  ostensibly  set  about  re- 
deeming the  promises  of  thirty  years.  For  that  length  of 
time,  and  longer,  it  had  been  assuring  the  country  that 
it  would  reduce  tariff  duties  in  its  own  way  and  time, 
always  through  friends  of  protection.  As  the  years  sped 
and  nothing  was  done,  the  faith  of  many  grew  dim. 

But  here  we  are  [the  Nation  remarked,  March  18],  still  alive 
with  a  Republican  Congress  called  in  extraordinary  session  to 
reduce  the  tariff.  Wonders  will  never  cease.  The  reflections  of 
Democrats,  however,  cannot  be  other  than  bitter.  Here  is  their 
own  issue  —  a  winning  issue  —  deliberately  thrown  away  for 
twelve  years,  and  now  their  rivals  called  to  power  to  do  what 
should  have  been  their  own  triumphant  task.  As  the  failure  of 
mere  party  tacticians,  their  mortification  is  complete.  Aban- 
doning their  strong  position,  they  went  off  into  the  unknown 
under  a  leader  who  vacillated  between  financial  unsoundness 
and  class  hatreds;  saw  themselves  defeated  time  after  time;  and 
now  have  to  suffer  the  humiliation  of  finding  their  opponents 
appropriating  the  only  issue  on  which  the  Democrats  have  been 
able  to  win  a  victory  in  twenty-five  years.  Seldom  can  the 
whirligig  of  politics  have  brought  round  a  more  dramatic  re- 
venge. We  would  not  speak  as  though  the  work  were  already 
done,  and  a  satisfactory  tariff  enacted  by  the  Republicans. 
Their  labor  is  all  before  them,  and  it  will  be  arduous.  Great 
credit  is  due  President  Taft  for  firmly  holding  Republicans  to 
their  pledges.  As  was  said  by  Judge  Parker  in  his  lecture  at 
Princeton  on  Saturday,  there  are  signs  in  abundance  that  many 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    221 

Republicans  never  intended  an  honest  revision  of  the  tariff,  but 
the  sincerity  of  Mr.  Taft's  purpose  is  not  questioned  even  by 
his  opponents. 


1910 

Philosophers  and  Guides 

Mayor  Gaynor's  remark  that  he  had  made  of  Epic- 
tetus  a  daily  companion  gave  rise  to  much  good-natured 
banter  in  the  press.  To  the  Nation  there  was  a  lesson  of 
distinct  practical  value  in  Mayor  Gaynor's  practice. 

When  we  find  [it  said,  April  21]  the  famous  old  "Encheiri- 
dion"  really  used  for  a  hand-book,  as  Mr.  Gay  nor  uses  Epicte- 
tus,  for  a  daily  guide,  for  a  refuge  from  the  ills  and  perplexities 
of  the  commonplace  world,  this  too,  too  solid  New  York  seems 
to  melt  away,  and  we  are  living  with  those  delightful  Ration- 
alists of  the  eighteenth  century  who  exalted  the  brotherhood  of 
man  and  worshipped  the  ancients. 

Very  few  after-dinner  speeches  [the  Nation  mused]  begin 
nowadays  with  a  quotation  from  Emerson  or  Burke  or  Horace, 
let  alone  Boethius  or  Epictetus.  And  yet  we  cannot  help  think- 
ing that  one  of  the  homely  sentiments  the  ancients  were  so  ex- 
pert in  devising  would  make  as  good  a  text  as  any  of  the  worn- 
out  pegs  in  use  among  present-day  orators.  Surely,  a  sentence 
from  Epictetus  or  Montaigne  or  Francis  Bacon  would  be  as  dig- 
nified and  as  appropriate  a  beginning  as  the  present  rule  which 
requires  that  the  speaker,  whether  his  subject  is  Gold  Produc- 
tion in  the  United  States  or  the  Progress  of  Woman  Suffrage, 
shall  begin  by  stating  that  a  Methodist  bishop  was  once  driving 
along  a  country  road  in  the  South,  when  he  came  upon  an  old 
colored  man  belaboring  his  mule  with  a  fence  rail.  It  is  left  to 
the  speaker  to  effect,  as  neatly  as  he  can,  the  transition  from  the 
negro  and  the  mule  to  gold  production  and  woman  suffrage.  It 


222    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

is  true  that  nearly  all  of  the  stories  about  the  negro  and  the 
mule,  or  the  two  Irishmen  who  were  returning  from  a  funeral, 
can  be  traced  back  to  Epictetus,  or  one  of  his  contemporaries  or 
predecessors.  And  it  is  also  true  that  our  own  imaginative, 
romantic,  verbose,  picturesque  age  wants  more  "go"  and  color 
to  its  wisdom  than  we  can  find  in  the  sententious  ancients. 
Nevertheless,  it  seems  unjust  that  while  we  accept  the  wisdom 
of  the  old-timers  as  it  percolates  down  through  the  newspaper 
funny  column  and  the  vaudeville  stage,  we  should  so  utterly 
forget  the  men  from  whom  so  much  of  our  modern  wit  comes, 
or  classify  them  with  the  old  duffers. 

They  are  still  sold  in  goodly  quantities,  those  famous  books 
which  parents  buy  for  their  children  to  read,  when  they  should 
be  reading  them  for  their  own  souls'  good  —  Epictetus  and 
Marcus  Aurelius,  and,  perhaps,  even  Longinus  on  the  Sublime, 
Plutarch,  Don  Quixote,  Montaigne,  and  Francis  Bacon.  They 
are  sold  in  goodly  quantities,  but  the  elders  do  not  read  them 
and  the  children  either  do  not  read  or  read  and  forget  before 
they  have  become  men  and  women.  They  gather  dust  under 
the  common  reproach  that  falls  on  the  classics:  highly  moral, 
no  doubt,  but  unreadable,  and,  for  modern  purposes,  quite 
useless.  And  yet  there  is  a  tremendous  amount  of  dynamite 
concealed  in  those  musty  and  mild-mannered  ancients.  We 
live  under  their  influence  in  the  present  day,  without  knowing 
it.  It  cannot  be  mere  coincidence  that  the  man  who  for  seven 
years  turned  things  upside  down  in  Washington,  the  man 
who  has  turned  things  inside  out  at  Albany,  and  the  man 
who  is  busily  putting  things  right  side  up  in  New  York  City, 
are  all  readers  and  students  of  the  ancient  moralizers  —  of 
Thucydides,  Epictetus,  and  Marcus  Aurelius. 

To  what  extent  do  men  nowadays  go  to  a  favorite  book  for 
help  in  their  everyday  work?  Everybody  to-day  has  his  favor- 
ite author;  but  that  only  means  the  author  who  can  best  help 
him  through  a  spring  evening  at  home  or  a  sultry  afternoon  in 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    223 

a  hammock.  But  are  there  still  books  to  which  men  turn  for 
light  in  perplexity,  for  solace  in  adversity,  for  that  counsel  and 
guidance  which,  unless  the  tradition  of  three  thousand  years 
lies,  has  been  found  by  many  men  in  many  books?  The  books, 
we  presume,  are  still  to  be  had,  books  of  a  positive  and  not  a 
merely  negative  efficacy,  not  merely  books  which  take  your 
mind  away  from  something  else  that  one  would  forget,  but 
carry  it  to  something  else  that  it  is  good  to  remember.  The 
books  are  still  here  no  doubt;  but  are  the  men  here  to  read 
them?  Are  Mr.  Gaynor  and  Mr.  Hughes  merely  survivals,  or  is 
there  still  a  considerable  class  of  men  who  can  make  a  daily 
companion  of  a  single  author  or  a  favorite  volume?  It  does  not 
matter  so  much  who  the  author  is.  The  point  is,  does  modern 
man  look  for  or  tolerate  a  guide  and  a  source  of  authority  out- 
side of  himself  and  his  daily  newspaper? 


1911 

The  Lawyer  and  the  Country 

Governor  Woodrow  Wilson's  address  before  the 
Kentucky  Bar  Association,  on  "The  Lawyer  in  Politics," 
attracted  general  attention  because  of  his  presumptive 
candidacy  for  the  Democratic  nomination  for  the  Presi- 
dency. He  dealt  chiefly  with  two  aspects  of  the  subject  — 
the  help  that  lawyers  can  render  in  effecting  a  reform  in 
legal  procedure,  and  their  instrumentality  in  solving  the 
great  problem  of  corporation  and  industrial  control. 

Governor  Wilson  [the  Nation  said,  July  20]  does  well, 
doubtless,  to  exhort  the  lawyers  to  cultivate  broad-mindedness 
and  patriotic  endeavors ;  to  think  of  themselves  as  citizens  first 
and  hired  advocates  only  secondarily;  and  to  express  a  pious 
hope  that  some  State  bar  association  may  make  up  its  mind  to 
devote  itself  with  "determination  and  indomitable  persever- 


224    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

ance"  to  the  promotion  of  "those  policies  which  will  bring 
regeneration  to  the  business  of  the  country,"  the  solving  of  the 
modern  problems  of  life  with  their  "infinite  complexities." 
But  we  confess  that  this  notion  of  a  concerted  attack  upon 
the  questions  of  trusts  and  monopolies,  of  employees'  claims 
and  employers'  duties,  of  taxation  and  property  rights,  does 
not  strike  us  as  in  the  least  degree  promising.  The  lawyers  of 
the  country  have  an  extraordinary  opportunity,  and  there  lies 
upon  them  an  extraordinary  duty,  in  all  this  field;  but  it  is  an 
opportunity  and  a  duty  which  should  appeal  to  them  individ- 
ually, not  collectively.  Light  and  leading  in  these  matters  are 
to  be  expected  from  a  few  men  of  superior  ability  and  excep- 
tional devotion,  not  primarily  from  the  cooperative  efforts  of  a 
great  association. 

In  this,  as  in  some  other  highly  important  matters,  our 
country  suffers  incalculably  from  the  remorseless  absorption 
of  its  best  intellects  and  strongest  personalities  in  the  routine 
of  business.  There  are  to-day  in  the  legal  profession  scores  of 
men  of  the  highest  powers,  the  most  abundant  knowledge  and 
experience,  who  keep  their  nose  to  the  grindstone  of  ordinary 
professional  practice  simply  because  everybody  else  does  so, 
and  who  would  find,  even  from  the  point  of  view  of  personal 
ambition,  infinitely  greater  satisfaction  in  efforts  directed 
toward  great  public  objects.  When  the  call  of  public  duty 
comes  in  a  familiar  form,  it  often  meets  with  ready  response 
from  such  men.  Mr.  Hughes  did  not  hesitate  to  take  upon  him- 
self the  tremendous  burdens  of  a  task  not  inherently  congenial 
to  him  when  circumstances  accidentally  pointed  to  him  as  the 
necessary  man  for  the  governorship.  Great  labors  are  con- 
tinually being  undertaken,  without  hope  of  reward,  by  busy 
lawyers,  when  some  public  task  has  to  be  performed  for  which 
they  are  drafted  by  reason  of  their  special  qualification.  But 
what  a  magnificent  opening  there  is  for  the  man  who  is  an 
acknowledged  master  of  all  the  complexities  of  corporation 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    225 

law  and  business,  who  is  still  in  the  prime  of  his  powers,  and 
who  should  set  up  for  himself  the  ambition  of  becoming  a 
leader  of  enlightened  thought  on  these  absorbing  questions,  a 
mighty  influence  in  the  shaping  of  public  policy,  an  instrument 
ready  to  the  hand  of  the  State  or  the  Federal  Government  in 
the  execution  of  such  policy.  A  single  man  of  commanding 
powers,  with  this  as  the  distinctly  conceived  object  of  his  pro- 
fessional ambition,  might  achieve  what  parties  and  conven- 
tions wear  themselves  out  in  vain  efforts  to  accomplish. 


1912 
Leaders  in  a  Democracy 


Governor  Woodrow  Wilson  in  a  speech  expressing 
his  determination  to  carry  into  execution  the  policies  to 
which  he  stood  committed,  at  the  same  time  announced 
his  purpose  of  continually  going  to  the  people  to  ask 
what  they  wanted  done.  That,  if  taken  literally,  said  the 
Nation,  would  closely  resemble  the  famous  dictum  of 
the  French  politician,  trailing  after  a  mob  of  his  constitu- 
ents: "I  must  follow  them,  for  I  am  their  leader."  But 
the  Nation  preferred  to  take  Mr.  Wilson's  remark  rather 
as  the  seeming  self-effacement  of  a  masterful  man  who 
knows  what  he  means  to  do,  but  desires  to  base  his  action 
upon  the  semblance  of  a  strong  popular  demand.  His 
independence  of  the  Democratic  machine  was  in  itself  a 
sufficient  guarantee  of  his  qualities  of  genuine  leadership. 
In  this  respect,  at  least,  the  Nation  said,  he  is  certain  to 
be  a  leader  in  the  Presidency.  "No  boss  can  dictate  to 
him.  No  threat  of  punishment  at  the  polls  will  terrify 
him.   He  will  be  his  own  master." 

But  this  attitude  towards  his  party  organization  [the  Nation 
added,  December  26]  is  only  one  part  of  the  work  of  a  real 


226    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

leader.  If  he  is  such,  he  cannot  neglect  the  devising  and  advo- 
cacy of  party  policies.  How  will  he  set  about  that?  Is  he  to 
look  into  his  own  heart  alone?  Or  is  he  to  have  no  thought  or 
will  except  what  is  conveyed  to  him  as  he  places  his  ear  to  the 
ground?  The  whole  question  is  confessedly  intricate.  It  goes 
close  to  the  centre  of  successful  statesmanship.  Lord  Rosebery 
has  written  of  the  mysterious  relations  of  a  political  leader  to 
his  party.  He  both  gets  and  gives.  Rosebery  thinks  that  he 
gets  more  than  he  gives.  But  that  depends  upon  the  man. 
Gladstone  did  not  come  out  for  Irish  Home  Rule  because  the 
brains  and  mass  of  the  Liberals  demanded  it.  He  rather  im- 
posed that  policy  upon  his  party.  Joseph  Chamberlain  was  not 
a  puppet,  moved  by  party  wire-pullers,  when  he  startled 
England  by  advocating  a  return  to  protective  tariffs.  He  fur- 
nished an  instance  of  a  vigorous  statesman  scoring  off  his  own 
bat,  and  forcing  a  reluctant  party  to  fall  into  line  behind  him. 
It  would  be  foolish  to  say  that  this  can  often  be  done,  or 
should  always  be  attempted.  A  Prime  Minister  or  a  President 
has  frequently  to  be  an  opportunist.  That  word  has  a  good 
sense  as  well  as  a  bad.  It  may  signify  the  public  man  who,  to  be 
sure,  has  plans  which  he  cherishes  and  hopes  which  he  keeps 
alive,  but  who  knows  that  he  must  wait  for  the  ripening  of  the 
time.  Never  failing  to  urge  his  policy  on  fitting  occasions,  he 
yet  has  the  patience  of  a  Lincoln  to  abide  the  slow  result. 
Lord  Cromer  describes  the  responsible  statesman  in  a  democ- 
racy as  very  much  in  the  position  of  a  man  in  a  boat  off  the 
mouth  of  a  tidal  river.  He  long  has  to  strive  against  wind  and 
current  until  finally  a  favorable  conjunction  of  weather  and 
tide  forms  a  wave  upon  which  he  rides  safely  into  the  harbor. 
There  is  an  essential  truth  in  this  which  no  man  attempting  to 
play  the  part  of  leader  in  a  democracy  can  forget  except  at  his 
peril.  Government  by  public  opinion  is  bound  to  get  a  sufficient 
body  of  public  opinion  on  its  side.  But  withal  it  is  manifestly 
the  duty  of  a  leader  to  help  form  a  just  public  opinion.  He  must 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    227 

dare  to  be  temporarily  unpopular,  if  only  in  that  way  can  he 
get  a  hearing  for  the  truths  which  the  people  ought  to  have 
presented  to  them.  He  is  to  execute  the  popular  will,  but  he  is 
not  to  neglect  shaping  it.  It  is  his  duty  to  be  properly  recep- 
tive, but  his  main  striving  ought  to  be  that  virtue  should  go 
out  of  him  to  touch  and  quicken  the  masses  of  his  citizens.  If 
their  minds  and  imaginations  are  played  upon  with  sufficient 
persistence  and  sufficient  skill,  they  will  give  him  back  his  own 
ideas  with  enthusiasm.  A  man  who  throws  a  ball  against  a 
wall  gets  it  back  again  as  if  hurled  by  the  dead  brick  and 
mortar;  but  the  original  impulse  is  in  his  own  muscle.  So  a 
democratic  leader  may  say,  if  he  chooses,  that  he  takes  only 
what  is  pressed  upon  him  by  the  people;  but  his  function  often 
is  first  to  press  it  upon  them. 

Without  something  of  this  personal  initiative  and  vigor,  it  is 
certain  that  there  can  be  no  true  leadership.  The  theory  of  a 
ruler  always  listening  for  the  word  of  command  from  the  crowd 
breaks  down  in  a  dozen  ways.  Gladstone  said  that  the  orator 
got  as  vapor  from  his  audience  what  he  returned  as  shower. 
But  if  a  would-be  leader  collects  only  the  dust  that  blows 
through  the  streets  and  across  the  fields,  what  can  he  give  back 
but  mud?  No;  the  ideal  democracy  is  a  led  democracy,  and  is 
always  looking  about  for  men  of  force  to  show  it  where  to  go. 


1913 
Our  Duty  to  Mexico 


The  monstrous  killing  of  Madero,  considered  in  its 
purely  international  aspects,  called,  in  the  opinion  of  the 
Nation,  for  no  change  of  policy  on  the  part  of  our  Gov- 
ernment. Almost  at  the  very  time  when  Madero  was 
being  done  to  death,  President  Taft  had  reaffirmed  his 
determination  not  to  intervene  in  Mexico  unless  abso- 


228    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

lutely  compelled  to  do  so.  The  shocking  events  in  Mexico 
City,  the  Nation  argued,  should  not  affect  that  decision. 

What  [it  asked,  February  27]  is  the  prudent,  the  statesman- 
like, the  patriotic  course  for  our  Government  to  pursue  towards 
Mexico?  Surely  there  is  no  great  mystery  about  it.  If  the 
Mexicans  can,  even  along  bloody  paths,  proceed  to  set  up  a 
reasonably  stable  Government  of  their  own,  we  must  aid  them 
in  every  way  open  to  us  to  do  it  —  aid  them  by  forbearance, 
but  also  by  friendly  counsels.  Our  Government  and  our  Am- 
bassador in  Mexico  City  can,  as  it  were,  make  themselves  the 
mouthpiece  of  civilization.  They  can  apply  a  quiet  moral  pres- 
sure to  the  rulers  of  Mexico.  Those  men  must  be  made  to 
understand  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  the  public  opinion  of 
the  world,  and  that  they  are  answerable  to  it;  that  Mexico 
cannot  be  permitted  to  lurch  back  into  the  barbarous  govern- 
mental methods  of  seventy  years  ago,  as  if  nothing  had  hap- 
pened since.  All  this,  of  course,  lends  immense  importance  to 
the  selection  of  the  next  Ambassador  to  Mexico.  Mr.  Wilson 
should  seek  the  best  man  attainable  —  known  for  his  love  of 
peace,  for  his  tact,  for  his  ability  to  see  the  right  thing  to  do 
and  the  just  thing  to  say.  Only  by  such  a  choice  and  by  the 
most  patient  and  sagacious  course  in  determining  the  attitude 
of  his  Administration  in  this  vexed  and  highly  complicated 
matter,  can  the  new  President  surmount  what  might  easily  be 
a  crisis  or  even  a  calamity  confronting  him  from  the  first  hour 
of  his  taking  office. 


1914 

Making  Life  Insurance  do  the  Most  Good 

The  Nation,  in  its  issue  of  January  1,  devoted  an  ar- 
ticle to  the  efforts  -ef  the  leading  life  insurance  companies 
to  devise  methods  of  securing  the  greatest  certainty  of 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    229 

substantial  good  for  those  whom  the  policy-holders  were 
most  anxious  to  benefit.  The  companies  having  drawn 
the  attention  of  prospective  insurers  to  a  plan  of  putting 
the  benefits  in  the  shape  of  annuities  for  the  beneficiary, 
instead  of  a  lump  sum  paid  at  the  death  of  the  insured, 
the  Nation  furnished  a  suggestion  that  could  not  fail  to 
be  of  general  interest. 

There  is  a  consideration  [it  said]  which  seems  never  to  be 
pressed  either  by  insurance  companies  or  by  others.  We  refer 
to  the  fact  that  in  a  large  proportion  of  cases  the  sole  motive 
of  the  insurer  is  to  provide  for  the  benefit  of  one  person  or  of  a 
small  group  of  persons,  and  that  if  these  do  not  survive  him 
the  acquisition  of  the  amount  of  his  policy  by  his  heirs-at-law 
is  of  no  interest  to  him.  For  simplicity,  let  us  speak  of  the  case 
of  a  man  whose  only  purpose  in  insuring  is  to  provide  for  his 
wife  in  case  she  survives  him.  Evidently,  the  way  in  which  he 
could  best  serve  this  purpose  would  be  to  take  out  a  policy 
providing  for  a  payment  to  the  widow  either  of  a  lump  sum  or 
of  a  fixed  annuity,  the  company  to  pay  nothing  in  the  event 
that  she  did  not  survive  him.  By  means  of  this  last  feature,  he 
could  evidently  obtain  for  the  widow,  with  a  given  expenditure, 
a  much  larger  provision  than  otherwise. 

Survivorship  policies  of  this  nature  —  simple  survivorship 
policies  and  survivorship  annuities  —  have  been  obtainable 
from  English  companies  since  the  very  infancy  of  life  insurance, 
and  also  from  American  companies ;  but  the  advantage  of  them 
has  not  been  made  sufficiently  known.  There  are,  indeed,  two 
evident  obstacles  to  their  widespread  adoption.  One  is  that 
people  have  a  dislike  to  paying  premiums  of  life  insurance  from 
which  it  may  easily  happen  that  no  returns  will  come;  how 
unreasoning  this  attitude  is  appears  at  once  when  we  con- 
sider that  in  the  case  of  fire  insurance,  and  even  accident  in- 
surance, we  never  think  of  regarding  the  probability  that  our 
house  will  not  burn  down  or  that  we  shall  not  break  a  leg  or 


230    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

an  arm  as  any  objection  at  all.  The  other  obstacle  comes  from 
the  fact  that  the  majority  of  persons  nowadays,  when  they 
insure,  have  in  view  a  provision  for  their  own  old  age  as  well 
as  for  a  surviving  beneficiary  or  beneficiaries.  To  some  extent 
both  these  difficulties,  however,  are  overcome  in  that  combi- 
nation form  of  policy  which  was  introduced  a  number  of  years 
ago  by  Emory  McClintock,  one  of  the  foremost  actuaries  in  the 
world,  under  the  name  of  the  continuous  endowment  policy, 
and  which,  we  believe,  is  essentially  identical  with  some  of  the 
plans  now  being  pushed  by  the  companies  that  are  recom- 
mending the  annuity  plan. 

We  are  convinced,  nevertheless,  that  it  would  be  possible  to 
bring  about  such  recognition  of  the  manifest  advantages  of  the 
survivorship  plan  in  insurance  as  would  result  in  its  adoption 
by  thousands  of  persons  who  now  either  do  not  insure  at  all, 
or  insure  very  inadequately,  for  the  protection  of  those  dear  to 
them.  Every  man  would  prefer,  of  course,  to  make  sure  of  his 
own  independence  if  he  lives  to  old  age,  as  well  as  of  the  welfare 
of  his  wife,  or  children,  or  mother,  if  he  dies  an  untimely  death. 
But  it  costs  a  lot  of  money  to  do  that;  and  if  a  man  who  cannot 
afford  a  big  annual  sum  for  insurance  were  distinctly  and  simply 
informed  that  for  a  very  moderate  sum  applied  to  the  sole  pur- 
pose of  providing  for  some  one  person  dependent  on  him  he 
could  place  that  person  beyond  all  danger  of  want,  he  would 
in  a  considerable  proportion  of  cases  avail  himself  of  the 
opportunity.  This  surely  applies  in  great  numbers  of  cases  of 
husband  and  wife ;  but  there  are  others.  Unmarried  men  having 
a  parent  dependent  on  them  are  not  to  be  counted  by  the 
million;  but  there  are  many  thousands,  perhaps  many  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  them.  A  man  of  thirty  could,  by  the  pay- 
ment of  a  veritable  trifle,  absolutely  insure  that  his  mother  of 
sixty  should  not  suffer  in  material  comfort  through  his  death; 
and  the  peace  of  mind  that  this  would  bring  about  would  of 
itself  in  many  cases  be  a  great  blessing.   It  is  doubtless  true 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    231 

that  there  is  no  great  inducement  to  insurance  companies  in 
general,  from  their  customary  standpoint  of  large-scale  business, 
to  exert  themselves  greatly  in  this  direction;  but  some  one 
company,  making  a  specialty  of  it,  might  do  much  with  it, 
and  in  doing  so  would  be  entitled  to  the  credit  of  having  done 
a  real  social  service.  Nor  do  we  see  any  reason  why  some  of 
our  great  millionaires  should  not  start  a  company  which  would 
undertake  this  work  on  well-planned  lines  —  surely  as  good  an 
embodiment  of  the  idea  of  "philanthropy  and  four  per  cent" 
as  can  well  be  imagined. 


1915 
A  Momentous  Decision 


The  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,  in  the  case  of  the 
Oklahoma  franchise  law,  ended  a  long  series  of  attempts 
in  various  States  to  nullify  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  to 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  That  Amendment, 
in  the  language  of  the  Court,  was  intended  and  supposed 
to  be  "  self  -executing  "  throughout  the  entire  country.  Yet 
cunningly  devised  laws  to  circumvent  it  had  been  passed. 

Next  to  the  unanimity  of  the  Court  [the  Nation  said,  June 
24],  the  most  gratifying  circumstance  of  its  decision  is  that  it 
was  read  by  Chief-Justice  White,  himself  a  Southerner,  and 
formerly  a  Confederate  soldier.  With  him  fully  agreed  two 
other  Southern  judges,  Justice  Lamar  and  Justice  McReynolds. 
These  men  could  not  fail  to  feel  keenly  the  political  difficulties 
of  the  South  which  had  led  to  the  adoption  of  laws  designed  to 
exclude  the  mass  of  the  negroes  from  the  franchise.  Yet  per- 
sonal or  regional  sympathies  could  not  be  allowed  to  sway 
those  set  for  the  expounding  of  the  law  of  the  land.  White, 
Lamar,  and  McReynolds  were  judges  first,  and  Southerners 
afterwards.  It  was  theirs  simply  to  act  "as  becometh  a  judge." 


232    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

In  his  opinion,  the  Chief -Justice  cut  away  with  sharp  strokes 
the  many  false  pretences  with  which  these  discriminating  suf- 
frage laws  have  been  surrounded.  It  was  maintained  that 
there  was  no  express  discrimination  against  any  class  of  voters. 
The  "standard"  set  up  by  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  was  not 
openly  disavowed.  Yes,  declared  Judge  White,  but  the  laws 
containing  the  "grandfather"  clauses  "inherently"  break 
down  that  standard,  since  they  are  "based  purely  on  a  period 
of  time  before  the  enactment  of  the  Fifteenth  Amendment," 
and  would  "revitalize  conditions  which,  when  they  prevailed 
in  the  past,  had  been  destroyed  by  the  self -operative  force  of 
the  Amendment."  With  something  like  irony,  the  Chief -Justice 
denied  that  there  could  be  "any  peculiar  necromancy"  affect- 
ing the  qualifications  of  voters  at  the  special  period  singled  out 
by  suffrage  laws.  The  Court  did  not  in  the  least  deny  to  the 
States  the  right  to  make  their  own  election  laws  and  fix  the 
requirements  of  the  franchise.  They  could  enact  a  literacy  test 
for  voters,  if  they  chose.  Only,  they  must  render  it  absolutely 
impartial,  applying  to  whites  as  well  as  blacks.  The  thing 
which  they  were  forbidden  to  do  by  the  Constitution  was  to 
make  of  either  literacy  or  property  qualifications  a  "subter- 
fuge" to  deprive  any  class  of  citizens  of  the  right  to  vote. 
Moreover,  the  Court  did  not  confine  itself  to  an  abstract  deci- 
sion. It  upheld  the  criminal  conviction  of  election  officials  in 
Oklahoma  for  denying  the  vote  to  negroes;  and  also  approved 
the  award  of  money  damages  to  negroes  refused  admission  to 
the  registration  booths  in  Annapolis,  Maryland.  The  whole 
constitutes  a  rounded  decision  of  the  utmost  Constitutional 
and  political  importance.  It  means  as  much  forward  as  the 
Dred  Scott  case  did  backward. 

Two  feelings  will  well  up  in  the  hearts  of  thoughtful  Ameri- 
cans as  they  reflect  upon  the  full  significance  of  this  momentous 
decision  of  the  Supreme  Court.  One  is  of  gratitude  and  pride 
that  we  have  a  Constitution  and  a  judicial  system  under  which 


THE  NATION'S  WEEKLY  COMMENTS    233 

the  rights  of  the  poorest  and  humblest  are  secure.  "The  very 
least  as  feeling  her  care,"  said  Hooker,  in  his  famous  apos- 
trophe to  Law.  It  is  the  law  which  has  now  come  to  the  rescue 
of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  lowly  strugglers  who  could  scarcely 
articulate  their  sense  of  being  wronged.  And  it  is  law  which  is 
at  the  same  time  shown  to  be  massive  common  sense  as  well  as 
justice.  Everybody  has  always  known  that  these  discrimin- 
ating suffrage  statutes  were  shams  and  tricks.  They  pretended 
to  do  one  thing  while  compassing  another.  But  now  it  is  the 
technicality-loving  judges  who  have  brushed  aside  the  tech- 
nicalities, gone  straight  to  the  heart  of  the  case,  and  declared 
bluntly  that  no  such  thing  as  a  "subterfuge"  franchise  can 
exist  in  this  republic.  All  the  talk  for  years  past  of  doing  some- 
thing to  enhance  the  popular  esteem  for  the  courts  seems  weak 
and  pale  compared  with  what  the  Supreme  Court  has  done  to 
exalt  itself  as  a  tribunal  of  high  and  exact  justice,  by  this  one 
splendid  stroke. 

For  the  rest  —  and  this  is  the  other  feeling  we  mean  —  there 
will  be  full  sympathy  with  the  South  in  the  efforts  it  will  now 
have  to  make  to  adjust  itself  to  the  new  conditions.  Legisla- 
tures will  need  to  act,  in  order  to  square  their  statutes  with  the 
Supreme  Court  decision,  but  more  important  is  it  that  public 
opinion  should  move  intelligently.  We  have  all  got  to  face  the 
facts.  North  as  South,  we  now  know  what  we  have  to  reckon 
with.  If  we  are  in  peril  from  an  ignorant  vote,  the  remedy  is 
not  to  suppress  it,  but  to  be  just  and  fair  to  it  and  to  educate  it. 
A  mighty  impulse  to  the  already  powerful  movement  for 
better  common-school  education  in  the  South  ought  to  follow 
the  Supreme  Court  decision.  In  that  effort,  and  in  all  others 
to  "educate  our  masters,"  in  Robert  Lowe's  phrase,  and  to 
bring  about  a  better  feeling,  based  on  political  justice,  between 
the  races,  the  South  may  count  upon  the  heartiest  aid  and 
applause  of  the  North. 


Ill 
REPKESENTATIVE  ESSAYS 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS 

KNICKERBOCKER  LITERATURE 

By  J.  R.  Dennett 

(December  5,  1867) 

Fitz  Greene  Halleck,  who  left  us  the  other  day,  was 
a  writer  whose  works  are  a  favorable  specimen  of  what, 
speaking  roughly,  may  be  called  the  Knickerbocker  liter- 
ature. Of  the  school  of  writers  which  produced  this  liter- 
ature it  is  true  to  say  that  it  was  composed  of  authors 
whom  we  all  remember  as  forgotten.  Their  names  are 
well  enough  remembered,  but  the  present  generation 
knows  little  of  them  except  their  names,  that  they  very 
properly  acknowledged  Washington  Irving  as  their  leader 
and  master,  and  that  they  lived  in  or  about  New  York. 
Charles  Fenno  Hoffman  was  one  of  them,  James  Kirke 
Paulding  was  another,  Halleck  and  Joseph  Rodman 
Drake  were  two  more,  and  besides  these  there  were  Robert 
C.  Sands,  John  Sanderson,  the  two  Clarks,  —  Willis  Gay- 
lord  and  Lewis  Gaylord,  —  Nathaniel  Parker  Willis,  per- 
haps, and,  in  a  sense,  Cooper  the  novelist.  Two  men,  for 
a  time  classed  among  these  by  the  popular  voice,  are  Mr. 
Bancroft  and  Mr.  Bryant;  but  these  have  both  escaped. 
Mr.  Bryant  deserved  his  good  fortune.  For  what  saddens 
him  a  man  can  hardly  return  gratitude;  but  respect,  very 
genuine  if  not  profound,  every  reader  of  Mr.  Bryant's 
poems  must,  it  seems  to  us,  accord  to  their  author.  The 
spirit  of  his  poetry  is  melancholic  almost  to  sombreness; 
there  is  in  it  nothing  to  delight.  It  might  be  com- 
pared to  a  chill  wind  which  blows  softly  —  not  out  of 
graveyards;  it  possesses  hardly  so  much  of  human  inter- 


238    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

est  as  that  which  blows  over  graves  that  have  long  been 
forgotten,  where  lies,  undistinguished  from  the  common 
earth,  the  dust  of  disappeared  races  —  unremembered 
nations  and  tribes  resolved  into  earth.  From  such  a  soil 
grow  all  Mr.  Bryant's  lonesome,  sad  flowers  of  poetry. 
But  though  the  impression  produced  by  his  poetry  is 
not  a  pleasant  one,  and  therefore  not  in  the  highest  sense 
pleasing,  still  it  is  powerful,  and  he  produces  it  of  himself. 
Small  faults  of  imitation  he  has,  but  the  aspect  of  nature 
of  which  we  have  spoken,  —  nature  as  seen  from  a  soli- 
tary Indian  mound  sepulchre,  —  is  his  own  property, 
and  at  once  he  becomes  independent  of  the  Knicker- 
bockers. Mr.  Bancroft  —  who  is  to  American  history 
what  Mr.  Paulding  is  to  American  belles-lettres  literature 
—  came  to  New  York  from  New  England  too  late  to  be 
thoroughly  identified  with  the  old  Knickerbocker  people. 
A  good  many  other  names  might  be  added  to  those  we 
have  mentioned,  but  they  would  be  names,  and  no  more 
at  all,  meaning  nothing  to  this  generation. 

Dr.  Rufus  Wilmot  Griswold,  however,  ought  not  to 
be  passed  by  in  silence,  being,  as  he  was,  the  Knicker- 
bocker Boswell  of  our  Knickerbocker  Johnsons,  in  whose 
books  they  are  perhaps  more  plainly  to  be  seen  than  in 
any  of  their  own  works.  Cotton  Mather,  during  his  so- 
journ here  below,  or  above,  produced  three  hundred  and 
eighty-two  books  big  and  little;  then  comes  Dr.  Gris- 
wold, and  praises  him  as  "the  first  American  Fellow  of 
the  Royal  Society."  It  seems  to  us  that  in  this  critical 
judgment  on  so  extremely  literary  an  American  as 
Mather  was  we  find  the  clue  which,  if  any  clue  were 
needed,  would  more  surely  than  any  other  lead  us  to  the 
right  appreciation  of  the  Knickerbocker  literature.  In- 
deed, it  is  so  true  as  to  be  truismatically  true  that  to  the 
end  of  their  days  the  writers  who  produced  it  were 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  239 

colonists  and  provincials;  as  literary  men  they  had  no 
right  to  any  Fourth  of  July.  Provincial  they  were  even 
in  the  often-made  assertion  of  their  political  independence 
and  nationality,  as  any  one  may  see  to  his  abundant 
satisfaction  who  will  look  into  the  works  of  Paulding 
and  see  how  that  author,  "lying  supinely  on  his  back," 
as  somebody  makes  Patrick  Henry  say,  "  while  his  enemy 
binds  him  hand  and  foot,"  —  writing  stiffly  in  the  man- 
ner of  Swift  with  the  matter  of  Paulding,  —  insisted, 
with  much  ill-temper,  not  that  America  was  America, 
but  that  it  was  not  England,  was  much  better  than 
England  and  bigger  than  England;  that  the  Mississippi 
is  a  larger  river  than  the  Thames;  that  the  Quarterly 
Review  was  not  infallible,  and  in  a  variety  of  ways  rapped 
British  knuckles  with  a  yardstick  that  after  all  was 
British.  The  case  was  of  a  less  inflammatory  character, 
but,  perhaps,  even  more  hopeless,  when  Paulding  and  his 
compeers  were  not  engaged  in  being  patriotic.  As  Dr. 
Griswold  flatteringly  says,  Mr.  Hoffman  was  our  Knick- 
erbocker Moore  —  with  the  breadth  of  the  Atlantic 
between  him  and  the  Irish  one;  Mr.  Cooper  was  Scott 
whenever  he  could  be,  so  far  as  he  could  be,  and  was 
himself  only  when  he  came  to  backwoods  and  prairies 
which  Sir  Walter  had  not  seen;  Verplanck  and  Sanderson 
had  not,  to  be  sure,  remembered  enough,  but  certainly 
they  had  not  forgotten  enough  of  the  essayists  of  Queen 
Anne's  time  and  the  reviewers  of  the  Edinburgh.  Willis's 
reputation  is  dead,  not  because  he  was  essentially  an  imi- 
tator but  because  he  was  essentially  a  light  man  in  his 
books.  But  even  though  Willis  did  not  reflect  English  lit- 
erature, he  was  driven  to  putting  into  his  books  English 
literary  men  and  English  society.  At  any  rate  he  did  so, 
and  found  his  account  in  it.  Drake  died  young,  but  lived 
long  enough  to  imitate  the  versification  of  Byron  and 


240    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

Moore,  and  to  make  it  pretty  evident  that  he  would  never 
have  emancipated  himself.    Lewis  Gaylord  Clark  came 
again  to  the  surface  the  other  day  after  a  perfectly  char- 
acteristic fashion  —  a  fashion  characteristic,  at  any  rate, 
of  the  school  of  which  he  was  one,  not,  perhaps,  charac- 
teristic of  him;  we  know  next  to  nothing  about  him  — 
in  a  letter  written  apropos  of  Mr.  Dickens's  arrival.   Of 
course  Mr.  Samuel  Rogers  figured  in  it;  so  did  the  lib- 
rary at  Sunnyside,  Sidney  Smith,  Henry  Brevoort,  Mr. 
Bryant,  and  Mr.  Halleck.  "I  think,"  says  Mr.  Clark,  "it 
was  Mr.  Bryant  who,  in  this  connection,  mentioned  the 
fact  to  Rogers  that  Halleck  when  in  England  had  passed 
his  house  near  Hyde  Park.  '  Tell  him,'  said  Rogers, '  when 
he  is  next  in  England  that  the  author  of  "Marco  Boz- 
zaris ' '  must  not  pass  my  house  again ;  he  must  come  in. " 
We  love  to  think  that  probably  Dr.  Griswold  had  heard 
this  anecdote  a  couple  of  hundred  times.   It  would  have 
done  him  such  a  world  of  good.    "Rogers's  house,"  he 
would  say  to  himself,  "and  near  Hyde  Park!    Rogers 
knew  him  as  the  author  of  'Marco  Bozzaris!'"   And  we 
can  imagine  with  what  scorn  he  would  have  gazed  on 
the  young  person  who  after  that  declined  to  believe  Mr. 
Halleck  "one  of  the  first  poets  of  the  age."    He  would 
have  leaned  back  in  his  chair  and  proceeded  to  relate 
that  "Mr.  Bryant  once  said  to  Rogers,  the  poet-banker, 
that  Mr.  Halleck"  —  and  so  on.  Then,  it  is  possible,  he 
grasped  his  pen  firmly,  and  continued  his  biography  of 
the  poet:  "One  evening  in  the  spring  of  1819,  as  Halleck 
was  on  his  way  home  from  his  place  of  business,  he 
stopped  at  a  coffee-house  then  much  frequented  by  young 
men,  in  the  vicinity  of  Columbia  College.   A  shower  had 
just  fallen,  and  a  brilliant  sunset  was  distinguished  by  a 
rainbow  of  unusual  magnificence.   In  a  group  about  the 
door  half  a  dozen  had  told  what  they  would  wish,  could 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  241 

their  wishes  be  realized,  when  Halleck  said,  looking  at  the 
glorious  spectacle  above  the  horizon:  'If  I  could  have 
any  wish,  it  should  be  to  lie  in  the  lap  of  that  rainbow 
and  read  "Tom  Campbell."  A  handsome  young  fellow 
standing  near  suddenly  turned  to  him  and  exclaimed, 
'You  and  I  must  be  friends.'" 

It  was  Joseph  Rodman  Drake  who,  thus  impressed  by 
a  bit  of  imagery  worthy  of  his  own  "Culprit  Fay,"  thus 
proffered  friendship,  which  was  accepted  on  the  spot. 
We  have  no  need  to  imagine  what  sort  of  a  man  it  was 
who  could  form  the  wish  above  recorded;  it  is  still  pos- 
sible to  turn  to  Halleck's  works  and  discern  plainly  what 
Campbell,  with  the  help  of  others,  made  of  him.  "Gem 
of  the  crimson-colored  even,"  Campbell  says,  "Com- 
panion of  retiring  day,"  and  Halleck  follows  after  with 
"Twilight";  Byron,  without  at  all  meaning  it,  wrote 
"Fanny."  Scott  and  Scott's  parodists  wrote  for  him 
"Alnwick  Castle";  "Burns"  Halleck  himself  had  a  finger 
in,  and  it  was  he,  too,  who  wrote  the  energetic  and  obso- 
lescent "Marco  Bozzaris."  Parts  of  the  last-mentioned 
poem  are,  however,  hardly  yet  obsolescent,  and  will 
hardly  become  so.  It  is  the  only  poem  of  his  in  which  he 
for  a  little  while  forgot  himself  —  a  feat  of  great  difficulty 
for  him;  by  which  is  meant  not  that  he  habitually  carried 
undue  self-consciousness  into  his  poetry;  but  when  he 
forgot  himself  he  had  to  forget  so  many  people. 

The  imitative  character  of  Irving,  also,  the  head  and 
front  of  the  school,  is  very  generally,  though  it  is  not  yet 
universally,  recognized.  There  are  still  among  us  men 
of  the  generation  whose  hearts  glowed  within  them  when 
the  Edinburgh  praised  "Bracebridge  Hall,"  and  who 
confuse  the  pleasure  they  got  from  Irving's  works  with 
the  patriotic  pleasure  they  got  from  the  reviews  of  them. 
And  then,  unoriginal  as  he  is,  yet,  speaking  carefully,  one 


242    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

would  not  so  readily  say  of  him  that,  born  near  the 
Tappan  Zee,  he  closely  imitated  Addison,  as  one  would 
say  that  he  was  a  sort  of  a  kind  of  Addison  —  to  speak 
after  the  New  England  fashion  —  who,  by  the  bad  acci- 
dent of  birth,  happened  to  see  the  light  in  these  Western 
wilds.  As  has  often  been  said,  his  humor  is  imitative  of 
the  humor  of  the  Anne- Augustan  age;  but  it  has  a  local 
color,  and  less  often  a  local  flavor,  which  proves  it  the 
fruit  not  of  a  graft  merely,  but  of  a  tree  in  some  respects 
sui  generis.  With  this  not  very  great  amount  of  eulogy 
his  admirers  will  be  obliged,  we  suppose,  to  rest  content; 
that  seems  to  be  the  opinion  on  which  criticism  has  for 
some  time  settled.  For  our  own  part,  we  should  make 
this  much  abatement  of  the  praise  just  given  —  his 
humor  was  constantly  alloyed  by  a  coarseness,  some- 
times with  a  knowing  air  half -concealed,  sometimes  not 
concealed  at  all,  from  which  Addison  kept  himself  more 
pure. 

What  has  been  said  of  the  essentially  imitative  and 
colonial  character  of  our  Knickerbocker  authors  is  not  to 
be  said,  as  nothing  is  to  be  said,  without  some  limitations. 
Not  much,  however,  is  necessary  in  the  way  of  limita- 
tion. Mr.  Willis,  for  example,  was  the  author  of  one  or 
two  little  poems  which  possess  the  underived  beauty  of 
natural  sentiments  expressed  in  fine  verse.  Mr.  Paulding 
is  recognizable  as  an  American  patriot.  Cooper,  among 
his  many  utterly  unreadable  books,  has  one  or  two  in 
which  are  one  or  two  characters  that  are  original  with 
him,  and  that  may  be  supposed  natural.  It  is  hard  to 
tell.  Indiscriminate  praise  was  heaped  on  him;  all  of  it 
that  came  from  the  other  side  of  the  water  was  bestowed 
by  ignorant  critics;  most  of  it  given  him  here  was  given 
by  patriotically  enthusiastic  men,  the  mass  of  whom, 
we  suppose,  were  as  ignorant  as  their  English  brethren 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  243 

of  the  true  Indian  and  the  true  backwoodsman.  We 
know  nobody  who  gets  through  the  books  twice.  How- 
ever, the  characters  we  have  mentioned  are,  in  a  way,  a 
success,  and  are,  beyond  a  doubt,  of  Cooper's  invention, 
unless  we  say  that  the  backwoodsman  was  a  discovery 
rather  than  an  invention.  What  is  true  of  Willis  is  to 
a  less  extent  true  of  Morris,  and  so  on  of  some  of  the 
others.  But  it  remains  true,  too,  that  imitation  was  the 
life  and  breath  of  the  Knickerbocker  literature,  and  that 
it  is  now  pretty  much  dead. 

A  few  writers  still  linger  among  us  who  have  sat  at 
meat  with  the  masters  and  disciples  of  it,  and  keep  alive 
for  a  while  longer  its  traditions  in  their  own  memories 
and  the  memories  of  the  rest  of  us.  Indeed,  one  or  two 
of  the  disciples  themselves  are  with  us  yet,  and  Halleck, 
but  just  gone,  was  even  a  master.  Mr.  L.  G.  Clark,  who 
once  edited  The  Knickerbocker  Magazine,  —  "  Maga  " 
and  "Knick"  they  used  to  call  it,  with  jocoseness,  —  is, 
ex  officio,  of  that  other  world.  Mr.  Tuckerman  appears 
to  be  a  connecting  link  between  that  one  and  ours.  Mr. 
D.  G.  Mitchell  smacks  of  it,  and  there  are  several  other 
contemporary  writers  who,  by  some  inexplicable,  or  ex- 
plicable, association  of  ideas  suggest  to  us  the  old  days, 
though  it  would  not  be  possible  to  bring  them  within  our 
definition  of  the  Knickerbocker  author,  or  to  make  his 
description  apply  at  all  accurately  to  them. 

Beyond  a  doubt  it  would  be  wrong  to  pass  upon  these 
writers  whom  we  have  been  glancing  at  a  sentence  of 
unmitigated  condemnation.  They  were  once  the  boast  of 
their  countrymen  while  yet  Longfellow,  Emerson,  Haw- 
thorne, Lowell,  all  our  really  best  men,  were  considered 
but  prentice  hands,  and  while  it  was  unsuspected  that 
almost  all  our  really  good  names  in  literature  —  names 
that  have,  at  any  rate,  thrown  into  utter  eclipse  the 


244    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

renown  of  the  Knickerbocker  men  —  were  those  of 
writers  who  knew  not  Irving.  Once,  we  say,  they  were 
very  eminent,  and  they  have  since  so  thoroughly  lost 
their  former  distinction  that  we  do  not  know  where  to 
look  for  a  case  parallel  to  theirs.  The  master  of  them  all 
died  after  Sumter  was  fired  on,  and  already  it  seems  as  if 
he  had  lived  two  hundred  years  ago.  But  nevertheless 
they  served  a  most  useful  purpose.  They  were  our  first 
crop  —  to  borrow  a  figure  —  and  very  properly  were 
ploughed  in,  and  though  nothing  of  the  same  sort  has 
come  up  since,  and  we  may  be  permitted  to  hope  that 
nothing  of  just  the  same  sort  will  ever  again  come  up,  yet 
certainly  they  did  something  toward  fertilizing  the  soil 
from  the  products  of  which  we  are  now  getting  a  part  of 
our  food.  Certainly  they  cherished  in  our  not  wholly 
civilized  community  a  love  for  things  not  materialistic. 
Halleck,  for  instance,  if  he  did  but  little  for  literature 
pure  and  simple,  did  more  and  better  for  American  civil- 
ization than  if  he  had  wholly  devoted  himself  to  "the 
cotton  trade  and  sugar  line"  or  to  his  duties  as  John 
Jacob  Astor's  agent.  Our  young  men  in  Wall  Street  and 
the  streets  adjacent  may  better  trust  themselves  to  his 
influence,  though  he  never  "swung  a  railroad,"  as  they 
say  in  the  West,  than  to  the  influence  of  Commodore 
Vanderbilt,  if  we  may  name  names,  in  whose  eyes  busi- 
ness, it  would  seem,  is  war,  and  the  war-cry  is  vce  victis. 
It  cannot  be  expected  of  the  average  critics  of  to-day  to 
say,  as  literary  men,  that  our  Knickerbocker  literature  is 
a  very  fine  thing  or  a  very  valuable  thing,  but  as  Ameri- 
cans, if  we  are  not  sorry  that  it  exists  no  longer,  we  may 
very  well  be  glad  that  it  once  existed. 


THE  TALE  OF  THE  "RIPE  SCHOLAR" 

By  Francis  Parkman 

(December  23,  18G9) 

Not  many  years  ago,  a  certain  traditional  prestige, 
independent  of  all  considerations  of  practical  utility, 
attached  to  the  scholastic  character,  at  least  in  New 
England,  where  the  clergy  long  held  a  monopoly  of  what 
passed  for  learning.  New  England  colleges  were  once 
little  more  than  schools  for  making  ministers.  As  the 
clergyman  has  lost  in  influence,  so  the  scholar  has  lost  in 
repute,  and  the  reasons  are  not  hard  to  find.  The  really 
good  scholars  were  exceptions,  and  very  rare  ones.  In  the 
matter  of  theology  some  notable  results  were  produced, 
but  secular  scholarship  was  simply  an  exotic  and  a 
sickly  one.  It  never  recovered  from  its  transplantation 
and  drew  no  vital  juices  from  the  soil.  The  climate  was 
hostile  to  it.  All  the  vigor  of  the  country  drifted  into 
practical  pursuits,  and  the  New  England  man  of  letters, 
when  he  happened  not  to  be  a  minister,  was  usually  some 
person  whom  constitutional  defects,  bodily  or  mental, 
had  unfitted  for  politics  or  business.  He  was  apt  to  be  a 
recluse,  ignorant  of  the  world,  bleached  by  a  close  room 
and  an  iron  stove,  never  breathing  the  outer  air  when  he 
could  help  it,  and  resembling  a  mediaeval  monk  in  his 
scorn  of  the  body,  or  rather  in  his  utter  disregard  of  it. 
Sometimes  he  was  reputed  a  scholar  merely  because  he 
was  nothing  else.  The  products  of  his  mind  were  as  pallid 
as  the  hue  of  his  face,  and,  like  their  parent,  void  of 
blood,  bone,  sinew,  muscle,  and  marrow.  That  he  should 
be  provincial  was,  for  a  long  time,  inevitable,  but  that  he 
was  emasculate  was  chiefly  his  own  fault.  As  his  scholar- 


246    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

ship  was  not  fruitful  of  any  very  valuable  results,  as  it 
did  not  make  itself  felt  in  the  living  world  that  ranged 
around  it,  as,  in  short,  it  showed  no  vital  force,  it  began 
at  length  to  be  regarded  as  a  superfluous  excrescence. 
Nevertheless,  like  the  monkish  learning  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  it  served  a  good  purpose  in  keeping  alive  the  tradi- 
tion of  liberal  culture  against  a  future  renaissance.  We 
shall  be  told  that  we  exaggerate,  and,  in  one  sense,  this 
is  true,  for  we  describe  not  an  individual,  but  a  type,  from 
which,  however,  the  reality  was  rarely  very  remote,  and 
with  which  it  was  sometimes  identified.  The  most  fin- 
ished and  altogether  favorable  example  of  this  devitalized 
scholarship,  with  many  graceful  additions,  was  Edward 
Everett,  and  its  echoes  may  still  be  heard  in  the  halls  of 
Congress,  perplexing  Western  members  with  Latin  quo- 
tations, profuse,  if  not  always  correct. 

As  the  nation  grew  in  importance  and  in  sensitiveness, 
the  want  of  intellectual  productiveness  began  to  trouble 
the  popular  pride,  and  an  impatient  public  called  on  its 
authors  to  be  "original."  Spasmodic  efforts  were  made 
to  respond,  and  the  results  were  such  as  may  be  supposed. 
The  mountain  went  into  convulsions  of  labor  and  pro- 
duced a  mouse,  or  something  as  ridiculous.  After  an 
analogous  fashion  some  of  the  successors  of  our  pallid, 
clerical  scholars  raise  the  cry,  "Let  us  be  strong,"  and 
fall  into  the  moral  and  physical  gymnastics  of  muscular 
Christianity.  This,  certainly,  is  no  bad  sign,  in  so  far  as 
it  indicates  the  consciousness  of  a  want;  but  neither  orig- 
inality nor  force  can  be  got  up  to  order.  They  must 
spring  from  a  deeper  root  and  grow  by  laws  of  their  own. 
Happily  our  soil  has  begun  to  put  forth  such  a  growth, 
promising  in  quality,  but  as  yet,  in  quantity  and  in 
maturity,  wholly  inadequate  to  the  exigent  need. 

In  times  of  agitation,  alive  with  engrossing  questions  of 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  247 

pressing  moment,  when  all  is  astir  with  pursuit  and  con- 
troversy, when  some  are  mad  for  gold,  and  some  are 
earnest  and  some  rabid  for  this  cause  or  for  that,  the 
scholarship  of  the  past  is  naturally  pronounced  not  up 
with  the  times.  Despite  his  manifold  failings,  "the  self- 
made  man,"  with  his  palatial  mansion,  his  exploits  in  the 
gold-room,  in  the  caucus,  on  the  stump,  in  Congress,  and 
in  the  presidential  chair,  flatters  popular  self-love  and 
fills  the  public  eye.  Only  a  slight  reason  is  wanted  for 
depreciating  the  scholar,  and  a  strong  one  is  offered. 
Because  the  culture  which  our  colleges  supplied,  and 
which  too  many  of  them  still  supply,  was  weak,  thin,  and 
unsuitable,  it  was  easy  to  depreciate  all  culture.  By  cul- 
ture we  mean  development,  not  polish  or  adornment, 
though  these  are  its  natural  and  by  no  means  useless 
belongings.  Using  the  word,  then,  in  this  sense,  culture 
is  with  us  a  supreme  necessity,  not  for  the  profit  of  a  few 
but  of  all.  The  presence  of  minds  highly  and  vigorously 
developed  is  the  most  powerful  aid  to  popular  education, 
and  the  necessary  condition  of  its  best  success.  In  a 
country  where  the  ruling  power  is  public  opinion,  it  is 
above  all  things  necessary  that  the  best  and  maturest 
thought  should  have  a  fair  share  in  forming  it.  Such 
thought  cannot  exist  in  any  force  in  the  community 
without  propagating  its  own  image,  and  a  class  of  strong 
thinkers  is  the  palladium  of  democracy.  They  are  the 
natural  enemies  of  ignorant,  ostentatious,  and  aggressive 
wealth,  and  the  natural  friends  of  all  that  is  best  in  the 
popular  heart.  They  are  sure  of  the  hatred  of  charlatans, 
demagogues,  and  political  sharpers.  They  are  the  only 
hope  of  our  civilization;  without  them  it  is  a  failure,  a 
mere  platitude  of  mediocrity,  stagnant  or  turbid,  as  the 
case  may  be.  The  vastest  aggregate  of  average  intelli- 
gences can  do  nothing  to  supply  their  place,  and  even 


248    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

material  growth  is  impeded  by  an  ignorance  of  its  condi- 
tions and  laws.  If  we  may  be  forgiven  the  metaphor,  our 
civilization  is  at  present  a  creature  with  a  small  and  feeble 
head,  a  large,  muscular,  and  active  body,  and  a  tail  grow- 
ing at  such  a  rate  that  it  threatens  to  become  unmanage- 
able and  shake  the  balance  of  the  vital  powers. 

The  tendency  of  a  partial  education,  such  as  the  best 
popular  education  must  of  necessity  be,  is  to  produce  an 
excess  of  self-confidence;  and  one  of  its  results  in  this 
country  is  a  prodigious  number  of  persons  who  think,  and 
persuade  others  to  think,  that  they  know  everything 
necessary  to  be  known,  and  are  fully  competent  to  form 
opinions  and  make  speeches  upon  all  questions  whatever. 
As  these  are  precisely  the  persons  who  make  the  most 
noise  on  the  most  momentous  questions  of  the  day,  who 
have  the  most  listeners  and  admirers,  and  who  hold  each 
other  up  as  shining  examples  for  imitation,  their  incom- 
petency becomes  a  public  evil  of  the  first  magnitude.  If 
rash  and  ignorant  theorizing,  impulsive  outcries,  and 
social  and  political  charlatanry  of  all  sorts  are  to  have 
the  guiding  of  our  craft,  then  farewell  to  the  hope  that  her 
voyage  will  be  a  success.  The  remedy  is  to  infuse  into  the 
disordered  system  the  sedative  and  tonic  of  a  broad 
knowledge  and  a  vigorous  reason.  This  means  to  invigor- 
ate and  extend  the  higher  education;  to  substitute  for 
the  effete  and  futile  scholasticism  which  the  popular 
mind  justly  holds  in  slight  account,  an  energetic  and 
manly  development,  trained  to  grapple  with  the  vast 
questions  of  the  present,  and  strong  enough  in  numbers 
as  well  as  quality  to  temper  with  its  mature  thought  the 
rashness  of  popular  speculation.  Our  best  colleges  are 
moving  hopefully  in  this  direction;  none  of  them  with 
more  life  and  vigor  than  the  oldest  of  them  all.  The 
present  generation  will  see  an  increase  in  the  number  of 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  249 

our  really  efficient  thinkers,  but  it  is  a  positive,  not  a 
relative  increase,  and  is  far  behind  the  fast -increasing 
need.  Powerful  causes  are  at  work  against  it,  and  we  will 
try  to  explain  what,  to  our  thinking,  some  of  these 
causes  are. 

Perhaps  the  most  obvious  of  them  is  the  ascendency  of 
material  interests  among  us.  To  the  great  mass  of  our 
population,  the  clearing  of  lands,  the  acquiring  of  new 
territory,  the  building  of  cities,  the  multiplication  of  rail- 
roads, steamboats,  and  telegraph  lines,  the  growth  of 
trade  and  manufactures,  the  opening  of  mines,  with  the 
resulting  fine  houses,  fine  clothes,  and  sumptuous  fare, 
constitute  the  real  sum  and  substance  of  progress  and 
civilization.  Art,  literature,  philosophy,  and  science  —  so 
far  as  science  has  no  direct  bearing  on  material  interests 
—  are  regarded  as  decorations,  agreeable  and  creditable, 
but  not  essential.  In  other  words,  the  material  basis  of 
civilization  is  accepted  for  the  entire  structure.  A  pro- 
digious number  of  persons  think  that  money-making  is 
the  only  serious  business  of  life,  and  there  is  no  corres- 
ponding number  who  hold  a  different  faith.  There  are 
not  a  few  among  us  who  would  "improve  "  our  colleges 
into  schools  of  technology,  where  young  men  may  be 
trained  with  a  view  mainly  to  the  production  of  more 
steamboats,  railroads,  and  telegraphs;  more  breadstuffs; 
more  iron,  copper,  silver,  and  gold;  more  cottons  and 
woollens;  and,  consequently,  more  fine  houses  and  fine 
clothes.  All  this  is  very  well,  but  it  does  not  answer  the 
great  and  crying  need  of  the  time.  The  truth  is,  our  ma- 
terial growth  so  greatly  exceeds  our  other  growth  that  the 
body  politic  suffers  from  diseases  of  repletion.  A  patient 
bloated  with  generous  living,  and  marked  already  with 
the  eruptions  of  a  perverted,  diseased  blood,  is  not  to  be 
cured  solely  by  providing  him  with  more  food. 


250    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

The  drift  towards  material  activity  is  so  powerful 
among  us  that  it  is  very  difficult  for  a  young  man  to 
resist  it;  and  the  difficulty  increases  in  proportion  as  his 
nature  is  active  and  energetic.  Patient  and  devoted  study 
is  rarely  long  continued  in  the  vortex  of  American  life. 
The  dusty  arena  of  competition  and  strife  has  fascina- 
tions almost  irresistible  to  one  conscious  of  his  own  vigor. 
Intellectual  tastes  may,  however,  make  a  compromise. 
Journalism  and  the  lecture-room  offer  them  a  field  mid- 
way between  the  solitude  of  the  study  and  the  bustle  of 
the  world  of  business;  but  the  journal  and  the  lecture- 
room  have  influences  powerfully  adverse  to  solid,  ma- 
ture, and  independent  thinking.  There,  too,  is  the  pulpit, 
for  those  who  have  a  vocation  that  way;  but  in  this,  also, 
a  mighty  and  increasing  temptation  besets  the  conscien- 
tious student.  As  for  politics,  they  have  fallen  to  such  a 
pass  that  the  men  are  rare  who  can  mingle  in  them  with- 
out deteriorating. 

Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  the  diffusion  of  education 
and  intelligence  is  at  present  acting  against  the  free  devel- 
opment of  the  highest  education  and  intelligence.  Many 
have  hoped  and  still  hope  that  by  giving  a  partial  teach- 
ing to  great  numbers  of  persons,  a  stimulus  would  be 
applied  to  the  best  minds  among  them,  and  a  thirst  for 
knowledge  awakened  which  would  lead  to  high  results; 
but  thus  far  these  results  have  not  equalled  the  expecta- 
tion. There  has  been  a  vast  expenditure  of  brick  and 
mortar  for  educational  purposes,  and,  what  is  more  to 
the  purpose,  many  excellent  and  faithful  teachers  of  both 
sexes  have  labored  diligently  in  their  vocation;  but  the 
system  of  competitive  cramming  in  our  public  schools 
has  not  borne  fruits  on  which  we  have  much  cause  to 
congratulate  ourselves.  It  has  produced  an  immense 
number  of  readers;  but  what  thinkers  are  to  be  found 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  251 

may  be  said  to  exist  in  spite  of  it.  The  public  school  has 
put  money  in  abundance  into  the  pockets  of  the  dealers 
in  sensation  stories,  sensation  illustrated  papers,  and  all 
the  swarm  of  trivial,  sickly,  and  rascally  literature.  From 
this  and  cheap  newspapers  thousands  —  nay,  millions  — 
draw  all  their  mental  improvement,  and  pamper  their 
mental  stomachs  with  adulterated,  not  to  say  poisoned, 
sweetmeats,  till  they  have  neither  desire  nor  digestion  for 
strong  and  wholesome  food.  But  we  would  speak  rather 
of  that  truly  intelligent  and  respectable  public  which 
forms  the  auditories  of  popular  preachers  and  popular 
lecturers,  which  is  the  lavish  patron  of  popular  periodical 
literature,  which  interests  itself  in  the  questions  of  the 
day,  and  has  keen  mental  appetites  of  a  certain  kind. 
This  public  is  strong  in  numbers  and  very  strong  in  col- 
lective wealth.  Its  voice  can  confer  celebrity,  if  not  repu- 
tation; and  it  can  enrich  those  who  win  its  favor.  In 
truth,  it  is  the  American  people.  Now,  what  does  this 
great  public  want?  It  is,  in  the  main,  busied  with  the 
active  work  of  life,  and  though  it  thinks  a  little  and  feels 
a  great  deal  on  matters  which  ought  to  engage  the  atten- 
tion of  every  self-governing  people,  yet  it  is  impatient  of 
continuous  and  cool  attention  to  anything  but  its  daily 
business,  and  sometimes  even  to  that.  Indeed,  the  excit- 
ing events  of  the  last  ten  years,  joined  to  the  morbid 
stimulus  applied  to  all  departments  of  business,  have 
greatly  increased  this  tendency;  and  to-day  there  are 
fewer  serious  and  thoughtful  readers  than  in  the  last 
decade.  More  than  ever  before,  the  public  demands  elo- 
cution rather  than  reason  of  those  who  address  it;  some- 
thing to  excite  the  feelings  and  captivate  the  fancy  rather 
than  something  to  instruct  the  understanding.  It  rejoices 
in  sweeping  statements,  confident  assertions,  bright 
lights  and  black  shadows  alternating  with  something 


252    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

funny.  Neither  does  it  care  much  for  a  terse,  idiomatic, 
and  pointed  diction,  but  generally  prefers  the  flatulent 
periods  of  the  ready  writers.  On  matters  of  the  greatest 
interest  it  craves  to  be  excited  or  amused.  Lectures  pro- 
fessing to  instruct  are  turned  to  a  tissue  of  jokes,  and  the 
pulpit  itself  is  sometimes  enlivened  after  a  similar  fashion. 
The  pill  must  be  sugared  and  the  food  highly  seasoned, 
for  the  public  mind  is  in  a  state  of  laxity  and  needs  a 
tonic.  But  the  public  taste  is  very  exacting,  and  it  offers 
great  and  tempting  rewards  to  those  who  please  it. 

That  which  pleases  it  pays  so  much  better  in  money 
and  notoriety,  and  is  so  much  cheaper  of  production, 
than  the  better  article  which  does  not  please  it,  that  the 
temptation  to  accept  light  work  and  high  wages  in  place 
of  hard  work  and  low  wages  is  difficult  to  resist.  Nothing 
but  a  deep  love  of  truth  or  of  art  can  stand  unmoved 
against  it.  In  our  literary  markets,  educated  tastes  are 
completely  outridden  by  uneducated  or  half-educated 
tastes,  and  the  commodity  is  debased  accordingly.  Thus, 
the  editor  of  a  magazine  may  be  a  man  of  taste  and  tal- 
ents; but  his  interests  as  a  man  of  letters  and  his  interests 
as  a  man  of  business  are  not  the  same.  "Why  don't  you 
make  your  magazine  what  it  ought  to  be?"  we  once 
asked  of  a  well-known  editor.  "Because,"  he  replied,  "if 
we  did,  we  should  lose  four-fifths  of  our  circulation."  A 
noted  preacher  not  long  ago  confessed  to  us  that  the 
temptation  to  give  his  audience  the  sort  of  preaching 
which  they  liked  to  hear,  instead  of  that  which  it  was 
best  that  they  should  hear,  was  almost  irresistible. 

The  amount  of  what  we  have  been  saying  is,  that  the 
public  which  demands  a  second-rate  article  is  so  enor- 
mously large  in  comparison  with  the  public  which  de- 
mands a  first-rate  article  that  it  impairs  the  equality  of 
literary  production,  and  exercises  an  influence  adverse 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  253 

to  the  growth  of  intellectual  eminence.  Now,  what  is  the 
remedy?  It  seems  to  us  to  be  twofold.  First,  to  direct 
popular  education,  not  to  stuffing  the  mind  with  crude 
aggregations  of  imperfect  knowledge,  but  rather  to  the 
development  of  its  powers  of  observation,  comparison, 
analysis,  and  reasoning;  to  strengthening  and  instructing 
its  moral  sense,  and  leading  it  to  self-knowledge  and 
consequent  modesty.  All  this,  no  doubt,  is  vastly  more 
difficult  and  far  less  showy  in  its  results  than  the  present 
system  of  competitive  cramming,  and  requires  in  its 
teachers  a  high  degree  of  good  sense  and  sound  instruc- 
tion. The  other  remedy  consists  in  a  powerful  reinforce- 
ment of  the  higher  education,  and  the  consequent  devel- 
opment of  a  class  of  persons,  whether  rich  or  poor,  so 
well  instructed  and  so  numerous  as  to  hold  their  ground 
against  charlatanry,  and  propagate  sound  and  healthy 
thought  through  the  community.  He  who  gives  or  be- 
queaths money  to  a  well-established  and  wisely  con- 
ducted university  confers  a  blessing  which  radiates 
through  all  the  ranks  of  society.  He  does  a  service  emi- 
nently practical,  and  constitutes  himself  the  patron  of 
the  highest  and  best  utilitarianism. 


NATURAL  BOUNDARIES 

By  Michael  Heilpein 

(September  1,  1870) 

When  the  power  of  Napoleon  I  was  rapidly  crumbling 
away  after  the  crushing  defeat  at  Leipzig,  the  allies,  halt- 
ing at  Frankfort  before  entering  upon  the  last  campaign, 
offered  him,  for  peace,  the  undisturbed  possession  of 
France,  with  her  limits  extended  east  to  the  banks  of 
the  Rhine.  The  France  thus  offered  him  would  have 
been  almost  coextensive  with  ancient  Gaul,  which  was 
bounded  by  the  Rhine,  the  Alps,  and  the  Pyrenees,  and 
would  have  embraced,  besides  the  French  Empire  as  it 
now  is,  the  whole  of  Belgium,  portions  of  the  Nether- 
lands, Luxemburg,  and  Rhenish  Prussia,  Hesse,  and  Ba- 
varia. Napoleon,  in  his  unreasonable  pride,  spurned  these 
terms  of  peace,  and  when,  a  few  months  later,  he  presented 
them  as  his  own  to  the  Peace  Conference  at  Chatillon, 
they  were  rejected  by  the  allies.  Napoleon  fell,  and  the 
kingdom  of  the  Bourbons  was  ultimately  reconstructed  as 
it  had  been  before  the  wars  of  the  Revolution.  But  since 
that  time  France  has  not  ceased  dreaming  and  talking 
of  her  natural  boundaries  —  the  Pyrenees,  the  Alps,  and 
the  Rhine.  And  this  has  not  been  the  idle  dream  and  idle 
talk  of  popular  vanity  and  demagogism  merely ;  statesmen, 
historians,  publicists,  and  poets  have  vied  with  each  other 
in  making  France  believe  that  she  had  a  natural  right  to 
all  the  lands  west  of  the  Rhine,  and  the  dire  consequence 
of  that  fondly  cherished  delusion  is  the  present  war. 

We  call  it  a  delusion,  for  the  Rhine  is  not  a  natural 
boundary  of  France  in  a  rational  sense  of  the  word. 
Nor  are  rivers,  in  general,  the  natural  boundaries  of 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  255 

countries.  Rivers,  it  is  true,  form  excellent  geographical 
lines  of  demarcation  between  provinces  or  other  divisions 
of  one  and  the  same  empire,  kingdom,  or  confederation, 
such  as  are  the  lines  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Mississippi, 
which  bound  some  of  our  non-original  States.  But  they 
are  no  more  real  lines  of  separation  than  are  the  meridians 
of  longitude  or  parallels  of  latitude  which  have  been  se- 
lected to  bound  other  States  of  our  Union.  For  rivers, 
especially  navigable  rivers,  far  from  being  separating 
barriers,  are  natural  channels  of  intercourse  and  in- 
termingling, of  coalescence  and  union,  the  world  over. 
Comparative  geography,  a  science  of  rather  recent  de- 
velopment, has  fully  established  this  axiom.  If  used  as 
real  barriers,  as  the  Rhine  and  Danube  were  by  the 
Romans  against  the  barbarians,  and  the  Ticino  and  Po 
by  the  Austrians  against  Italy,  they  form  unnatural 
barriers  —  that  is  to  say,  unnatural  boundaries  —  kept 
up  and  guarded  by  the  sword  of  the  conqueror,  occasion- 
ally long  enough  to  become,  or  at  least  to  appear,  natural. 
Watersheds,  not  rivers,  form  natural  boundaries.  Moun- 
tain ranges  separate  nationalities.  The  same  nationality 
almost  everywhere  flourishes  on  both  banks  of  every 
navigable  river.  Every  basin,  or  at  least  every  section 
of  a  basin,  has  its  character.  The  inhabitants  of  the 
slopes  that  hem  it  in  will  fuse  with  the  dwellers  in  the 
bottom.  People  living  on  the  opposite  slopes  of  a  moun- 
tain range  will  tend  in  opposite  directions. 

The  whole  of  history  and  geography,  studied  together, 
proves  it.  The  Nile  has  never  nourished  two  different 
nationalities  on  its  opposite  banks ;  it  has  never  been  the 
boundary  of  an  empire.  Babylonia  flourished  on  both 
sides  of  the  Euphrates;  Assyria  on  both  sides  of  the 
Tigris.  The  Hebrews  occupied  both  banks  of  the  Jordan. 
Neither  the  Oxus  nor  the  Jaxartes,  neither  the  Indus 


256    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

nor  the  Ganges,  neither  the  Yang-tse-kiang  nor  the  Ho- 
ang-ho,  has  ever  formed  a  boundary  between  different 
nationalities,  or  separated  different  civilizations.  It  was 
not  the  river  Eurotas,  the  Alpheus,  the  Cephissus,  or 
the  Peneus,  but  mountain  ranges  like  the  Taygetus,  the 
Pindus,  and  the  (Eta,  that  formed,  by  bounding,  the 
wonderful  system  of  Grecian  autonomies.  The  various 
sections  and  branches  of  the  Apennines  mainly  separated 
the  ancient  national  divisions  of  Italy.  Rome  developed 
its  power  on  both  banks  of  the  Tiber;  the  Po,  in  forming 
Cispadane  and  Transpadane  Gaul,  bounded  provinces 
but  separated  no  nationalities;  the  little  rivulet  Rubicon 
only  marked  the  end  of  a  frontier  line  formed  by  the 
Apennines,  just  as  the  little  Tweed  in  the  Middle  Ages 
served  to  complete  the  natural  boundary  line  of  the 
Cheviot  range  between  England  and  Scotland. 

Mountain  ranges,  not  rivers,  formed,  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  the  grand  divisions  of  the  Iberian  Peninsula.  The 
Ebro  flows  not  on  the  confines  but  through  the  midlands 
of  Aragon ;  the  Guadalquivir  does  not  bound  but  traverses 
Andalusia;  Castilians  live  on  both  sides  of  the  upper 
Douro  and  Tagus,  Portuguese  on  both  sides  of  the  lower. 
The  countries  of  Eastern  and  Central  Europe  show  strik- 
ing parallel  examples.  Russians  inhabit  both  banks  of 
the  Volga  and  the  Don,  Poles  both  banks  of  the  Vistula; 
Germans  both  banks  of  the  Oder,  the  Elbe,  the  Weser, 
and  the  Rhine.  The  Danube  flows  through  the  very 
centres  of  "Wurttemberg,  Bavaria,  Austria,  and  Hungary. 
The  last-named  polyglot  country  owes  its  national  unity 
mainly  to  the  encircling  wall  of  the  Carpathians;  all  its 
rivers  flow  towards  or  through  its  central  bottom  lands, 
and  thus  keep  up  a  union  even  of  the  most  heterogeneous 
elements.  Bohemia  is  a  mountain  quadrilateral. 
,    The  mountain  and  river  systems  of  the  rest  of  Europe 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  257 

confirm  the  rule,  with  hardly  a  single  exception.  Neither 
do  those  of  America  invalidate  it.  That  the  Father  of 
Rivers  is  a  mighty  bond  of  union  instead  of  a  barrier  of 
separation,  is  acknowledged  on  all  hands.  The  same  is 
the  case  with  the  Missouri.  A  glance  at  the  map  will 
show  that  the  St.  Lawrence  is  only  a  figurative  boundary 
line  between  the  United  States  and  the  British  Provinces, 
and  that  it  flows  through  the  latter.  The  Rio  Grande  is 
a  frontier  line  dictated  by  recent  conquest,  and  Indian 
tribes  continue  to  roam  on  both  its  banks.  Rivers 
selected  as  State  lines  are  too  feeble  even  as  barriers 
between  communities.  The  lower  western  bank  of  the 
Hudson  is  lined  with  suburbs  of  New  York  City.  Cam- 
den is  a  suburb  of  Philadelphia;  Covington,  of  Cincin- 
nati. In  South  America,  the  Amazon  and  the  Orinoco 
offer  parallel  instances  to  the  Mississippi  and  the  St. 
Lawrence.  Some  branches  of  the  La  Plata  alone  can  be 
said  to  form  exceptions,  but  recent  events  indicate  that 
even  these  are  not  to  last. 

To  return  to  the  natural  boundary  between  France 
and  Germany.  It  is  clear  that  the  Rhine  is  far  from 
forming  it,  either  geographically  or  historically.  The 
natural  geographical  boundary  line,  irrespective  of  the 
now  existing  nationalities,  is  the  watershed  between  the 
Meuse  and  the  Aisne  and  Marne,  and  its  easterly  con- 
tinuation between  the  head-waters  of  the  Saone  and 
Doubs,  on  one  side,  and  those  of  the  Moselle  and  111,  on 
the  other.  All  of  France  that  lies  east  and  northeast  of 
this  watershed  —  the  main  parts  of  Lorraine  and  the 
whole  of  Alsace  —  belongs  to  the  water-system  of  the 
Rhine,  a  river  both  banks  of  which,  from  its  source  to  its 
mouth,  are  inhabited  exclusively  by  Teutonic  people  — 
Swiss,  Germans  proper,  and  Dutch.  Historically,  the 
lands  watered  by  those  western  affluents  of  the  Rhine 


258    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

formed,  after  the  downfall  of  the  Roman  rule  in  Gaul, 
parts  of  the  Frankish  realm  of  Clovis,  and  subsequently 
of  its  eastern  and  purely  German  division,  Austrasia, 
while  the  valleys  of  the  Seine  and  of  its  numerous  affluents 
formed  the  much  more  Gallic  western  division,  Neustria. 
The  Carlovingian  Empire  embraced  both  divisions,  but 
after  its  final  disruption  during  the  period  of  partitions 
inaugurated  by  the  Treaty  of  Verdun,  Austrasia  was 
merged  in  Germany,  while  out  of  Neustria  gradually 
grew  up  the  modern  Kingdom  of  France.  And  both 
Alsace  and  Lorraine  —  the  latter  in  its  main  parts  — 
continued  to  belong  to  Germany  down  to  the  time  when 
French  centralization,  developed  by  Louis  XI  and  per- 
fected by  Richelieu,  proved  itself  decidedly  superior  to 
the  more  and  more  loosening  machinery  of  the  Empire  — 
the  final  annexation  of  the  two  provinces  to  France  taking 
place  under  Louis  XIV  and  Louis  XV  respectively.  The 
inner  territories  of  Lorraine  have  since  become  almost 
entirely  Gallicized ;  Alsace  is  French  in  sentiment,  though 
not  in  language,  and  the  section  of  the  Rhine  which 
bounds  it  on  the  east  has  assumed  the  semblance  of  a 
natural  boundary,  but  the  semblance  only.  The  posses- 
sion of  the  western  bank  of  this  river  section  has  stimu- 
lated the  desire  of  making  the  Rhine  the  eastern  bound- 
ary ^of  France.  The  constant  threatening  to  achieve  this 
conquest  as  an  act  based  on  a  natural  postulate  has  awak- 
ened, even  in  the  more  moderate  portions  of  the  German 
people,  the  thought  of  reestablishing,  on  an  opportune 
occasion,  the  natural  boundaries  between  Germany  and 
France  as  they  were  before  the  Peace  of  Westphalia.  It 
is  beyond  the  sphere  of  this  article  to  discuss  the  ques- 
tions whether  the  present  is  the  opportune  moment  to  do 
it,  and  whether  it  would  at  any  time  be  just  or  expedient 
to  do  it  against  the  will  of  the  populations  concerned. 


NEUTRALS  AND  CONTRABAND 
By  E.  L.  Godkin 
(September  15,  1870) 

It  is  impossible  for  anybody  who  watches  the  course 
of  the  present  struggle  in  Europe  to  avoid  being  struck 
by  the  increasing  difficulty  of  the  position  of  neutrals  in 
all  wars.  The  close  relations,  as  far  as  time  and  space 
are  concerned,  into  which  steam  and  the  telegraph  and 
commerce  have  now  brought  all  civilized  powers,  make 
every  armed  struggle  an  object  of  intense  interest  to 
lookers-on,  as  well  as  to  those  actually  engaged  in  it,  and 
this  interest,  in  turn,  makes  the  belligerents  increasingly 
sensitive  and  exacting.  There  being  plenty  of  "sym- 
pathy" to  be  had,  and  the  newspapers  being  very  active 
in  the  expression  of  it,  each  wants  as  much  of  it  as  pos- 
sible; and  if  he  does  not  get  as  much  as  he  thinks  he  is 
entitled  to,  or  more  than  his  adversary,  he  boils  over 
with  indignation,  and  warns  defaulters  that,  as  soon  as  he 
gets  his  hands  free,  he  will  pay  them  off.  At  this  moment 
there  exists,  in  part  at  least  on  account  of  the  improper 
refusal  of  "sympathy"  during  hostilities,  great  exasper- 
ation on  the  part  of  the  United  States  towards  England 
and  France,  on  the  part  of  Italy  towards  Prussia,  on  the 
part  of  Russia  towards  Prussia  and  (in  a  greater  degree) 
towards  Austria,  and  on  the  part  of  both  Prussia  and 
France  towards  England.  The  position  of  England  has 
indeed  become  almost  comic  in  its  embarrassment.  The 
press  and  the  mass  of  the  people  sympathize  with  Prus- 
sia, as  a  Protestant  and  Teutonic  power,  and  are  very 
demonstrative  in  expressing  their  feelings;  while  only 
some  of  the  old  Conservatives  —  for  reasons  a  little  diffi- 


260    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

cult  to  fathom  —  stand  by  France,  or  at  least  did  so 
during  the  existence  of  the  Empire.  Accordingly,  the 
French  are  furious,  and  vow  vengeance  dire  whenever  a 
favorable  opportunity  presents  itself.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  Prussians,  far  from  being  satisfied  with  the  enthusi- 
astic articles  in  the  English  papers,  are  full  of  indignation 
—  first,  because  England  made  no  attempt  to  restrain 
the  French  before  the  outbreak  of  the  war;  secondly,  be- 
cause the  London  Times  has  had  the  impudence  to  talk 
of  intervention  on  the  part  of  England,  with  its  army  of 
forty  thousand  men,  at  the  moment  when  half  a  million 
of  Prussians  are  marching  on  Paris;  but,  lastly,  —  and 
this  is  the  most  serious  cause  of  offence,  —  because  the 
French  draw  arms  and  munitions  from  England  in  un- 
limited quantities,  while  Prussia,  being  strictly  block- 
aded, is  to  a  certain  extent  excluded  from  the  market. 
The  consequence  is  that  the  tone  of  the  Prussian  press 
towards  England  is  very  virulent,  and,  it  is  said  — 
though  this  is  doubtful  —  that  its  remonstrances  and  de- 
nunciations have  been  backed  up  by  a  very  acrimonious 
official  despatch. 

Now,  the  Prussian  complaints  of  the  English  sale  of 
supplies  to  France  open  up  a  question  of  immense  im- 
portance—  namely,  what  is  contraband  of  war,  and 
whose  duty  is  it  to  see  that  neutrals  do  not  supply  it  to 
belligerents?  We  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that, 
should  the  doctrines  which  are  gaining  ground  on  these 
points  finally  prevail,  it  will  be  almost  as  cheap  —  putting 
aside  the  loss  of  life  —  for  a  nation,  whenever  a  quarrel 
breaks  out  between  two  of  its  neighbors,  to  take  part  in 
the  fray  and,  by  giving  vigorous  aid  to  one  side,  help  to 
bring  it  to  a  speedy  close,  as  to  remain  at  peace.  In  the 
first  place,  the  term  "contraband"  is  every  year  receiving 
a  wider  and  wider  application.   Its  meaning  has  never 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  261 

been  very  accurately  defined.  The  only  certain  rule  of 
international  law  on  the  subject  is  that  weapons  and 
munitions  of  war,  and  the  harness  of  cavalry  and  artil- 
lery, are  contraband;  but  from  time  to  time,  either  by 
the  assumption  of  belligerents,  or  by  special  treaty,  it 
has  been  made  to  cover  a  great  variety  of  articles,  even 
provisions  intended  for  the  general  use  of  the  population, 
and  not  for  the  garrison  or  inhabitants  of  a  besieged 
or  blockaded  city.  The  decisions  of  courts  and  the  dicta 
of  elementary  writers  on  the  subject  are  as  vague  and 
unsatisfactory  as  possible.  Wood  for  shipbuilding  has 
been  held  to  be  contraband,  and,  by  parity  of  reasoning, 
so  now  should  iron.  Coal  has  become  contraband  since 
the  introduction  of  steam ;  telegraphic  apparatus,  doubt- 
less, would  be  held  to  be  contraband;  and  if  food  be, 
under  certain  circumstances,  contraband,  why  not  cloth 
and  leather?  Indeed,  as  the  application  of  scientific 
processes  to  the  purposes  of  destruction  spreads,  we  may 
expect  the  list  of  prohibited  articles  to  be  indefinitely 
extended;  and  it  would  be  extended  to  such  a  degree  as 
to  interfere  seriously  with  the  industry  of  neutral  nations 
but  for  one  thing  —  namely,  the  ancient  and  invaluable 
usage  which  imposes  on  the  belligerents  the  task  of 
stopping  contraband  on  its  way  to  the  enemy. 

That  usage  now  appears  to  be  threatened  with  abroga- 
tion. As  the  excitement  caused  by  war  becomes  inten- 
sified and  widely  diffused,  there  is  an  increasing  dispo- 
sition on  the  part  of  belligerents  to  treat  trading  with  the 
enemy  on  the  part  of  the  citizens  of  a  neutral  state  as  a 
hostile  act,  for  which  the  Government  of  the  neutral 
state  may  fairly  be  held  responsible,  thus  throwing  on 
those  who  have  had  no  hand  in  getting  up  the  war  a 
duty  which  formerly  had  to  be,  and  always  ought  to  be, 
performed  by  the  belligerent  cruisers  and  custom-house 


262    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

officers.  The  doctrine  of  international  law  with  regard 
to  war  has  always  been  that  it  was  an  exceptional  state 
of  things,  the  loss  and  inconvenience  resulting  from 
which  ought  not  to  fall  on  anybody  but  the  parties  to  the 
quarrel;  that  those  who  choose  to  stand  aloof  from  it, 
and  pursue  their  avocations  in  peace  and  quiet,  have  a 
perfect  right  to  do  so;  and  that  the  interests  of  civiliza- 
tion require  that  they  should  be  encouraged  and  pro- 
tected in  doing  so;  that  in  order  to  limit  the  area  of  the 
conflict,  however,  and  make  it,  as  far  as  possible,  a  trial 
of  strength  between  the  combatants,  and  them  only — and 
thus  be  as  speedily  as  possible  brought  to  a  close  —  they 
are  permitted  to  search  ships  trading  with  the  enemy, 
to  see  that  he  is  not  supplied  from  the  outside  with  the 
means  of  protracting  the  struggle.  But,  inasmuch  as 
trading  with  either  belligerent  is  a  perfectly  legitimate 
act  per  se,  the  trouble  and  expense  of  making  these 
searches  or  otherwise  preventing  the  transmission  of 
contraband  has  always  been  imposed,  and  justly  and 
properly  imposed,  on  the  belligerents.  If  they  caught 
anybody  engaged  in  it,  they  could  punish  him  by  the 
loss  of  his  property,  but  they  were  not  to  treat  him  as 
a  criminal  or  an  immoral  person  or  to  hold  his  Govern- 
ment responsible  for  his  acts.  The  running  of  a  blockade, 
for  instance,  is  not  an  immoral  or  hostile  act.  It  is  an  act 
which  a  trader  performs  at  his  own  risk,  but  if  he  succeeds 
he  simply  exercises  a  right  anterior  to  all  belligerent 
rights,  that  of  selling  the  proceeds  of  his  own  industry 
in  the  best  market  he  can  find.  Nevertheless,  what  with 
the  ambiguous  terms  in  which  the  citizens  of  neutral 
nations  are  warned  by  their  Governments  at  the  outbreak 
of  hostilities  not  to  engage  in  it,  and  the  excitement  of 
the  belligerents,  it  is  getting  to  be  gradually  looked  on 
as  an  act  of  hostility  which  the  neutral  power  is  bound  to 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  263 

prevent  or  punish.  Nothing  was  commoner,  for  instance, 
during  the  rebellion,  than  to  hear  blockade-runners  talked 
of  as  "pirates"  —  a  term  which  was  fearfully  abused, 
some  of  our  most  distinguished  publicists  using  it,  even 
on  state  occasions,  in  three  or  four  different  senses. 
Belligerents  are  now  beginning,  if  they  have  a  fleet  and 
can  institute  blockades,  to  look  at  blockade-running  in 
this  way,  and  insist  on  neutrals  using  municipal  law  to 
help  them  in  stopping  it;  on  the  other  hand,  if  they 
have  no  fleet  and  are  themselves  blockaded,  as  in  the 
case  of  Prussia,  they  are  anxious  to  impose  on  neutrals 
the  duty  which  they  themselves  are  unable  to  perform, 
of  catching  and  stopping  munitions,  arms,  and  other 
contraband  articles  on  their  way  to  the  enemy's  markets, 
or  their  delivery  to  him  after  purchase. 

Now,  it  is  the  interest  of  the  human  race  that  the  posi- 
tion of  a  belligerent  should  be  as  onerous  and  unpleasant 
as  possible;  that  that  of  neutrals  should  be  as  irresponsible 
and  agreeable  as  possible.  The  things  which  make  for 
peace  are  the  things  which  it  should  be  the  policy  of  all 
governments  to  promote  and  foster.  During  the  late  war 
the  United  States  were,  for  the  first  time  in  their  history, 
placed  in  a  position  which  made  it  their  interest  to  press 
the  rights  of  belligerents  to  the  uttermost  limits,  and  la- 
bor for  the  restriction  of  those  of  neutrals.  We  believe 
rights  of  belligerents  were  not  pressed,  however,  against 
any  European  power  any  further  than  American  pre- 
cedents warranted,  but  the  controversy  with  England 
begot  temper  which  has  ever  since  inclined  the  public  to 
overlook  the  fact  that  the  real  interests  of  the  United 
States,  as  well  as  those  of  humanity,  lie  in  the  limitation 
of  the  area  reached  not  only  by  the  actual  operations 
but  by  the  losses  and  inconveniences  of  war,  or,  in  other 
words,  in  pushing  the  rights  of  neutrals  to  any  extent 


264    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

which  will  not  be  likely  to  transfer  the  havoc  of  war 
from  property  to  life.  In  all  legal  controversies  arising  out 
of  the  present  struggle  between  Prussia  and  France,  it 
behooves  us  to  remember  not  only  that  "those  who 
make  the  quarrel  should  be  the  only  men  to  fight,"  but 
that  the  men  who  do  not  fight  are  entitled  to  have  their 
goings  and  comings  and  dealings  subjected  to  as  little 
burden  or  restriction  as  possible.  If  any  country,  for  in- 
stance, does  not  chooose  to  keep  a  navy,  or  is  unable  to 
keep  one,  we  are  not  to  be  obliged  to  make  it  up  to  her, 
whenever  she  goes  to  war  and  gets  her  ports  blockaded, 
by  selling  nothing  to  her  adversary  which  is  likely  to 
help  to  prolong  the  contest. 


THE  MORALITY  OF  ARMS-DEALING 

(From  the  Nation,  January  2G,  1871) 

The  fact  that  although  the  French  have  drawn  sup- 
plies of  arms  and  ammunition  nearly  if  not  quite  as 
large  from  this  country  as  from  England,  and  that  Prus- 
sia, though  inveighing  bitterly  against  the  toleration  of 
the  traffic  by  the  English  Government,  has  taken  no 
notice  of  its  activity  in  the  United  States,  has  perhaps 
done  more  than  anything  else  to  cause  uneasiness  in 
England  touching  Prussian  intentions  with  regard  to  her, 
and  has  given  fresh  vigor  and  point  to  the  demands  for 
active  and  immediate  interference  on  the  French  side 
which  a  portion  of  the  English  press  has  been  recently 
putting  forth  —  a  portion,  too,  which  has  no  sympathy 
with  the  Positivist  notion  that  France  is  the  Holy  Land, 
and  Paris  the  New  Jerusalem.  The  discrimination  be- 
tween England  and  America,  made  not  only  by  the  Prus- 
sian Government,  but  by  the  public  and  the  army,  there 
is  no  denying  it,  looks  more  like  an  indication  of  a  desire 
to  pick  a  quarrel,  or  get  materials  ready  for  a  quarrel 
with  the  former,  than  of  a  desire  to  patch  up  the  rules  of 
international  law.  The  doctrine  of  "benevolent  neutral- 
ity," too,  produced  so  solemnly  by  Count  Bernstorff,1 
being  clearly  not  a  joke,  has  been  taken,  and  not  unnatu- 
rally, in  spite  of  the  pacific  sound  of  the  term,  as  a  sign 
of  growing  ferocity  of  temper,  and  of  a  desire  on  the  part 
of  Prussia  to  thrash  some  neutral  or  other.  The  British 
public  has,  consequently,  been  for  the  last  two  or  three 
months  in  the  same  uncertain  frame  of  mind  about  its 

1  Count  Albreeht  Bernstorff  was  Ambassador  at  London,  successively  of 
Prussia,  the  North-German  Confederation,  and  the  German  Empire. 


266    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

relations  with  the  Prussian  Government  as  we  may  sup- 
pose the  Jew  to  have  been  who  was  severely  cudgelled 
with  the  royal  hand  in  the  streets  of  Berlin,  for  running 
up  a  side  street  when  he  saw  Frederick  William  I  ap- 
proaching. His  subjects,  his  Majesty  said,  ought  to  love 
and  not  to  fear  him,  and  he  enforced  the  rule  by  inflict- 
ing a  sound  thrashing  then  and  there  on  the  first  person 
taken  flagrante  delicto. 

If  the  Prussians  had  from  the  beginning  assailed  the 
United  States  as  well  as  England  —  that  is,  made  the 
obligation  of  "benevolent  neutrality"  general  and  not 
particular  —  they  would  doubtless  have  received  hearty 
support  from  that  large  body  of  persons  in  this  country 
who  hold  the  sale  of  arms  to  belligerents  to  be  immoral, 
and  its  prohibition  by  municipal  law  a  duty  resting  on 
higher  grounds  than  international  usage.  The  illustra- 
tions they  have  adduced  in  support  of  their  theory,  and 
especially  that  pet  one  of  the  two  men  fighting  in  the 
street,  one  of  whom  a  neighbor  supplies  with  a  knife  or 
pistol,  shows,  however,  that  they  have  contented  them- 
selves with  a  very  limited  survey  of  the  field.  What 
makes  the  fight  of  the  two  men  useless  for  their  purpose 
is,  that  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  arms,  which  go  on 
on  a  great  scale  in  the  United  States,  England,  and  Bel- 
gium at  all  times,  employ  an  enormous  amount  of  capi- 
tal and  thousands  of  operatives.  The  export  of  rifles  and 
revolvers  for  military  purposes  is  a  very  important 
branch  of  the  national  trade  in  all  these  countries.  It 
is  viewed  with  no  disfavor  or  reprobation.  A  manu- 
facturer of  arms,  or  the  inventor  of  a  new  cartridge  or 
breech-loader,  not  only  finds  that  his  achievements  do 
not  injure  him  in  the  estimation  of  his  neighbors,  but 
that,  if  he  is  successful,  they  are  actually  titles  to  honor 
and  distinction.  Colonel  Colt,  or  Remington,  or  Sharpe, 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  267 

or  Sir  William  Armstrong,  or  Krupp,  has  certainly  never 
found  that  his  calling  brought  any  stigma  on  him,  or  that 
it  barred  his  entrance  into  any  Christian  church,  or 
charity,  or  mission  board,  or  made  his  subscription  to 
any  benevolent  or  religious  enterprise  unwelcome.  On 
the  contrary,  the  fact  is  —  and  in  view  of  what  we  some- 
times listen  to  on  the  subject  of  the  "horrors  of  war,"  we 
think  we  may  call  it  an  amusing  fact  —  these  forgers  of 
weapons  are  held  in  high  honor  and  repute  as  great 
industrial  chiefs.  Their  factories  are  pointed  to  with 
pride;  their  contracts  with  foreign  governments  are 
chuckled  over  for  their  glorious  effects  on  "the  balance 
of  trade."  All  this  is,  of  course,  comprehensible  and 
defensible  on  various  grounds.  We  know  several  good 
reasons  why  the  business  of  a  manufacturer  or  dealer  in 
arms  should  be  treated  as  perfectly  legitimate;  we  should 
be  sorry  to  see  him  brought  before  a  court  of  philanthro- 
pists as  "a  bad  man,"  and  condemned  on  the  ground 
that  certain  ladies  and  gentlemen  were  of  opinion  that 
there  should  be  no  more  war. 

But  here  comes  in  the  absurdity  of  this  outcry  about 
the  immorality  of  selling  arms  to  belligerents.  Turkey 
has  been  arming  for  the  last  three  years  vigorously  with 
Remington  breech-loaders,  all  imported  from  this  coun- 
try. It  is  well  known  that  they  are  to  be  used  in  killing 
Russians,  but  no  word  of  protest  has  ever  been  heard 
against  the  transaction,  or  will  be  heard  as  long  as  the 
killing  has  not  actually  begun.  France,  between  1866  and 
1870,  procured  about  500,000  chassepots,  some  at  home 
but  many  abroad,  without  any  whisper  of  objection  also, 
though  it  was  well  known  that  they  were  intended  to 
be  used  in  killing  Germans.  Let  Turkey,  however,  begin 
to  defend  herself  this  summer  against  an  attack  by  Rus- 
sia, and  we  shall  be  gravely  told  that  to  sell  any  more 


268    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

Remingtons  to  her  to  take  the  place  of  those  lost  in 
active  service,  or  to  arm  fresh  troops,  is  a  crime  against 
humanity.  So  likewise,  it  would,  in  June,  1870,  have 
been  a  perfectly  proper  thing  to  have  delivered  100,000 
rifles  in  Paris,  to  arm  the  troops  getting  ready  to  invade 
Germany;  but  to  deliver  them  at  Bordeaux,  in  December 
of  the  same  year,  when,  according  to  these  same  moral- 
ists, France  is  defending  the  cause  of  human  freedom, 
besides  fighting  for  her  own  life,  is  blood-guiltiness. 

We  have  only,  indeed,  to  state  the  case  to  show  the 
absurdity  of  the  distinction  which  the  Prussians  have 
been  trying,  and  not  unnaturally,  to  set  up  for  their 
benefit,  and  to  which  they  have  managed  to  get  the 
adhesion  of  some  people  here  and  elsewhere  who  ought 
to  know  better.  There  is  not  a  shred  of  authority  in 
international  law  for  the  doctrine  that  any  neutral  gov- 
ernment ought  to  interfere  with  the  trade  of  any  dealer 
in  arms  who  chooses  to  run  the  risk  of  capture  by  bellig- 
erent cruisers.  There  is  not  the  shadow  of  excuse  in 
morals  for  applauding  the  sale  of  arms  for  warlike  pur- 
poses up  to  the  moment  the  war  breaks  out,  and  then 
reprobating  it  as  un-Christian.  War  and  the  preparation 
for  war  —  as  we  endeavored  to  show  some  weeks  ago 
when  discussing  the  peace  agitation  —  are  parts  of  one 
great  transaction,  which  must,  in  the  forum  of  morals, 
stand  or  fall  as  a  whole.  If  you  give  your  neighbor  les- 
sons in  shooting  and  fencing,  and  sell  him  powder  and 
ball,  and  pistols  and  cudgels,  and  in  all  your  conversations 
with  him  impress  on  him  the  beauty  and  glory  and  justi- 
fiability of  thrashing  somebody,  you  cannot  save  your 
Christian  character  and  build  up  a  reputation  as  a  peace- 
maker by  shutting  your  doors  and  refusing  to  let  him 
have  any  more  cartridges  or  knuckledusters  as  soon  as 
you  see  him  actually  engaged  in  a  fray  in  the  street;  and 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  269 

if  you  take  to  preaching  the  duty  of  forgiveness  of  in- 
juries to  him  out  of  a  window,  you  cannot  wonder  if  he 
recognizes  and  denounces  you  as  a  Pharisee  and  a  cheat. 
The  Prussian  complaint,  we  are  glad  to  see,  is  likely 
to  have  its  absurdity  made  still  more  patent  by  the 
action  of  some  of  the  Germans  in  this  country.  Meetings 
have  recently  been  held  in  the  West,  at  which  the  par- 
tiality of  the  Government  at  Berlin  was  rectified  by 
denunciations  of  the  Administration  at  Washington  for 
permitting  the  export  of  arms  to  France,  and  resolutions 
have  been  passed  refusing  it  confidence  and  support  till 
it  changes  its  policy.  When  we  see  German-American 
citizens  voting  against  the  Republican  party  because  it 
refuses  to  violate  a  well-known  rule  of  international  law, 
and  to  saddle  itself  with  new  and  difficult  duties,  to  the 
great  loss  and  detriment  of  American  citizens,  in  order 
to  compensate  Germany  for  the  want  of  a  navy  in  a  war 
with  France,  the  doctrine  of  "benevolent  neutrality  "  will 
have  been  relegated  to  its  proper  place  among  the  odd 
fancies,  born  of  excitement  and  embarrassment,  to  which 
all  belligerents  are  liable. 


TAINE'S  ENGLISH  LITERATURE1 

By  T.  R.  Lounsbury 

(January  4,  1872) 

There  are  two  ways  in  vogue  of  writing  the  history  of 
a  literature.  One  is  to  give  in  detail  the  main  facts  in  the 
lives  of  authors,  the  titles  of  books,  the  dates  of  their 
publication,  and  the  success  they  met  with,  together  with 
their  influence  upon  their  own  and  upon  succeeding  times. 
This  forms  the  principal  part  of  the  work  —  the  part 
upon  which  the  labor  of  preparation  is  chiefly  expended. 
Facts  are  everything,  principles  nothing.  There  is  criti- 
cism, to  be  sure,  but  usually  very  little,  and  that  little  of 
a  kind  that  leads  the  intelligent  reader  to  wish  there  were 
none  at  all.  The  other  method  is  entirely  different.  If  it 
deal  at  all  with  names  and  dates,  it  is  with  the  single  pur- 
pose of  setting  in  a  clearer  light  the  history  of  ideas.  It  is 
a  scientific  exposition  of  the  changes  that  have  taken 
place  in  the  intellectual  development  of  a  people,  the 
causes  which  have  led  to  them,  the  results  that  have 
sprung  from  them.  Its  chief  aim  is  to  trace  those  princi- 
ples of  thought  and  action  which,  ruling  the  lives  of  men, 
have  found  expression  in  their  literature.  In  this  view, 
the  subject  leaves  the  province  of  annals,  and  passes  into 
that  of  philosophy.  Literature  is  in  it  bound  up  with  the 
national  life,  and,  in  order  to  know  the  characteristic  of 
the  one,  it  is  essential  to  study  closely  the  other.  Race, 
climate,  political  institutions,  manners,  and  customs,  all 
become  of  importance;  for  these  all  affect  the  man,  and 
necessarily  leave  their  impress  upon  the  work  he  produces. 

1  History  of  English  Literature.  By  H.  A.  Taine.  Translated  by  H.  Van 
Laun.  Two  volumes.  New  York:  Holt  &  Williams.  1871. 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  271 

It  is  by  the  combination  of  both  methods  that  the  per- 
fect history  of  literature  will  be  written,  if  ever  written  at 
all;  but  up  to  the  present  time  the  former  has  been  the 
one  usually  followed.  Especially  is  this  true  in  the  case  of 
works  of  this  kind  produced  by  members  of  our  race,  with 
its  fondness  for  detail,  its  patient  accumulation  of  facts, 
its  aversion  to  general  principles.  But,  even  in  the  partic- 
ular field  chosen,  with  us  the  work  has  not  been  well  done. 
Our  histories  of  literature  are  full  of  information,  but  of 
information  ill  arranged,  ill  expressed,  utterly  undigested. 
Masses  of  fact  are  heaped  together  without  any  logical 
sequence,  without  any  thread  of  connection  save  that  of 
time  —  an  important  one,  certainly,  but  by  no  means  the 
most  important.  Men  are  treated  of  together  solely  be- 
cause they  happened  to  be  born  in  the  same  period,  just  as 
words  are  placed  together  in  a  dictionary  because  they 
happen  to  begin  with  the  same  letter.  These  works  are,  in 
many  cases,  eminently  useful ;  in  nearly  all  cases  they  are 
preeminently  stupid.  Nowhere,  indeed,  has  the  ancient 
realm  of  dulness  held  its  own  more  tenaciously,  nowhere 
has  it  suffered  less  from  even  the  semblance  of  invasion, 
than  in  the  province  of  English  literary  history  as  writ- 
ten by  Englishmen.  It  is  doubtful  if,  under  any  circum- 
stances, more  successful  efforts  have  ever  been  made  to 
disgust  the  human  mind  with  literature  itself. 

The  present  work,  which,  originally  published  in  1864, 
has  just  been  translated  into  English,  is  of  an  entirely 
different  cast.  It  follows  the  second  method  so  closely 
that,  in  the  sense  in  which  words  have  come  to  have  a 
meaning  with  us,  its  very  title  is  a  misnomer.  It  is  one  of 
the  last  books  on  the  subject  that  any  one  would  take  up 
with  the  hope  of  finding  any  definite  information  on  any 
point  in  the  history  of  English  literature.  Details,  so  far 
as  they  are  brought  in  at  all,  are  the  common  ones  that 


272    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

can  be  found  anywhere  and  everywhere.  They  are,  for 
the  most  part,  accurate,  because  they  rarely  go  outside 
of  matters  well  known.  From  one  end  to  the  other  of 
these  two  bulky  volumes  scarcely  a  score  of  dates  can  be 
met  with  in  the  text.  Numbers  of  inferior  writers  are  not 
even  spoken  of  at  all.  You  may  find  them  in  War  ton,  the 
author  tells  us  in  one  place  —  these  good  people  who 
speak  without  having  anything  to  say.  Names  high  in  the 
world  of  letters  frequently  fare  no  better.  What  are  we  to 
think  of  a  history  of  English  literature,  as  it  is  commonly 
understood,  which,  in  an  account  of  the  great  revival 
which  followed  the  intellectual  collapse  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  disposes  of  Coleridge  in  a  few  lines,  mentions 
Keats  once,  and  that  casually,  and  does  not  even  do  so 
much  as  that  for  other  prominent  writers?  Evidently, 
indeed,  some  of  these  authors  have  not  been  spoken  of 
because  they  have  never  been  read;  it  is  equally  clear  in 
other  cases  that  some  have  been  read  so  slightly  and 
superficially  that  there  has  been  no  independent  criti- 
cism. Whenever,  in  fact,  he  comes  to  treat  of  inferior 
writers,  Taine's  opinions  of  them  and  their  works  vary 
little  from  the  regular  stock  ideas.  He  generally  does  the 
correct  thing,  praises  where  everybody  else  praises, 
blames  where  everybody  else  blames.  He  looks  upon 
Sterne  as  a  sentimental  scamp,  finds  Richardson  very 
much  of  a  bore,  and  even  falls  in  with  the  fashionable 
denunciation  of  Pope,  the  representative  of  his  classical 
age,  in  quite  the  style  of  modern  English  criticism.  Yet, 
with  all  these  deficiencies,  if  one  is  pleased  to  call  them 
so,  the  work  is  not  simply  entertaining  throughout;  it  is 
instructive.  It  is  little  praise  to  the  author  to  say  that 
he  has  written  the  best  history  of  English  literature  that 
has  yet  been  produced;  he  could  not  well  have  written 
one  worse  than  those  already  existing;  and  the  surprise 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  273 

which  men  have  felt  at  finding  a  book  on  this  subject 
which  they  could  read  without  yawning  has  apparently 
led  some  of  them  to  ascribe  to  it  merits  which  its  com- 
poser would  not  be  likely  to  claim  for  it  himself.  For  the 
work  is  really  a  criticism  of  English  literature,  as  it  ap- 
pears in  a  few  of  its  greatest  authors,  about  whom  the 
others,  so  far  as  they  are  mentioned  at  all,  are  grouped. 
In  the  fifth  and  last  book,  which  treats  of  modern  writers, 
Taine  takes  six  as  representatives  of  the  tendencies  now 
existing.  "What,  in  this  place,  he  has  done  avowedly  and 
with  design  for  the  representation  of  tendencies,  he  has 
practically  done  everywhere  else  for  the  illustration  of 
the  history  of  results.  This  is,  without  doubt,  an  incom- 
plete way  of  giving  an  account  of  literature,  but  it  is 
much  the  most  attractive  way ;  nor  is  it,  in  certain  points 
of  view,  the  worst  as  regards  details  of  the  highest  im- 
portance. For  the  mass  of  men  will  not  read  books  of  this 
kind  at  all  if  they  are  compelled  to  wade  through  accounts 
of  obscure  authors,  of  whose  names  they  have  never 
heard,  and  whose  writings  they  have  neither  the  time 
nor  the  inclination  to  read. 

To  the  production  of  a  work  written  in  this  manner 
Taine  has  brought  several  qualifications —  one  qualifica- 
tion in  particular,  the  highest  of  all;  for  clearly  the  first 
and  most  essential  requisite  for  the  critical  treatment  of 
literary  history  is  a  catholic  sympathy.  Important  as  is 
fulness  and  accuracy  of  knowledge,  still  more  important 
is  the  spirit  with  which  one  undertakes  and  carries 
through  such  a  task.  He  who  sets  out  to  write  the  history 
of  a  literature  must  not  only  be  free  from  the  prejudices 
and  prepossessions  of  his  own  age,  but  must  be  prepared 
to  share  fully  in  the  feelings  and  ideas  which  have 
touched  the  hearts  and  moulded  the  manners  of  the  men 
of  every  age.    Obviously  a  most  difficult  thing  for  any 


274    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

man  to  do;  for  some  natures,  probably,  an  impossible 
thing.  It  is  hard  for  the  most  broadminded  one  of  us  to 
keep  himself  from  being  swayed  by  his  surroundings,  yet 
an  absolutely  necessary  thing  for  him  who  aspires  to  the 
position  of  judge.  He  cannot  afford  to  forget  that  a  liter- 
ary work  which  has  pleased  any  generation  must  have  in 
it  some  qualities  to  command  respect,  however  difficult  it 
may  be  to  the  men  of  another  generation  to  find  them. 
Still  more  certainly  must  it  have  such  qualities  if  it  con- 
tinues to  be  held  in  high  esteem  by  the  men  of  several 
generations,  even  though  these  may  be  comparatively  few 
in  number.  The  man  who  fails  to  appreciate  the  peculiar 
power  of  an  author  who  has  impressed  himself  upon  his 
time  may  not  be  lacking  in  literary  taste  —  for  in  that  the 
time  itself  may  have  been  deficient  —  but  he  is  clearly 
lacking  in  literary  sympathy.  He  has  no  right  to  criticise, 
or  rather  his  criticism  is  of  no  value,  because  there  is  one 
class  of  sentiments  and  ideas  with  which  he  has  not  suc- 
ceeded in  placing  himself  en  rapport.  The  student  of 
literature  who  cannot  appreciate  both  Byron  and  Words- 
worth, who  admires  Tennyson,  but  denies  merit  to  Pope, 
may  have  depth  of  culture  in  certain  directions,  but  he 
lacks  breadth.  The  mere  man  of  letters  may  consult  and 
gratify  the  peculiar  bent  of  his  mind,  may  have  his  favor- 
ite authors,  may  indulge  in  capricious  dislikes;  but  the 
critical  historian  of  literature  has  no  business  whatever 
with  preferences  or  aversions. 

It  is  here  that  Taine's  crowning  merit  lies.  The  literary 
information  he  furnishes  is  none  of  it  new,  and  as  regards 
amount  is  scanty.  His  philosophic  views,  his  generaliza- 
tions, his  opinions  of  particular  men,  be  they  right  or 
wrong,  are  likely  to  find  many  opposers.  But  the  spirit 
with  which  he  has  discharged  his  task  is  not  simply  ad- 
mirable on  its  own  account.  It  has  enabled  him  to  do  for 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  275 

English  literature  as  a  whole  what  no  Englishman  has  as 
yet  done  save  in  part.  "The  tirade  of  calumny,"  he  says, 
"was  in  vogue  fifty  years  ago;  in  fifty  more  it  will  proba- 
bly have  altogether  ceased.  The  French  are  beginning 
to  comprehend  the  gravity  of  the  Puritans;  perhaps  the 
English  will  end  by  comprehending  the  gaiety  of  Voltaire : 
the  first  are  laboring  to  appreciate  Shakespeare;  the  sec- 
ond will  doubtless  attempt  to  appreciate  Racine."  It  is, 
accordingly,  little  wonder  that  a  man  of  ability  who 
writes  in  such  a  spirit  should  have  been  enabled,  though  a 
foreigner,  to  present  the  most  vivid  and  attractive  picture 
of  English  literature  that  has  yet  been  drawn.  This  wide- 
embracing  sympathy  which  enables  him  to  see  how  the 
men  of  every  age  felt,  and  to  point  out  the  source  of 
every  writer's  power,  fails  him  nowhere  —  at  least  to  any 
marked  extent  —  save  in  his  criticism  of  Butler,  whose 
"Hudibras"  is,  in  his  eyes,  not  merely  mean  and  malig- 
nant, but,  what  in  a  literary  point  of  view  is  far  worse,  is 
also  awkward  and  dull.  Here  he  forgets  his  own  princi- 
ples. He  forgets  that  a  work  which  is  not  only  mean  and 
malignant,  but  likewise  awkward  and  dull,  does  not  con- 
tinue to  be  read  for  two  centuries.  But  this  is  a  solitary 
exception.  It  is  not,  indeed,  meant  to  be  asserted  that  his 
views  are  always  just  or  his  conclusions  always  sound. 
It  is  that  they  are  uniformly  legitimate  and  fair.  They 
are  just  and  true  in  the  light  in  which  the  facts  upon 
which  they  are  based  appear  to  an  acute  observer,  who 
looks  at  the  whole  subject  from  a  standpoint  altogether 
different  from  that  occupied  by  a  member  of  our  race. 
Given  his  premises,  you  can  hardly  fail  to  accept  his  con- 
clusions. It  matters  not  that  they  are  different  from 
ours,  that  in  some  cases  they  may  be  unpalatable.  Cer- 
tain fundamental  differences  of  opinion  between  the  two 
peoples,  perhaps  between  the  two  races,  must  be  taken 


276    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

for  granted,  and  for  them  the  requisite  allowance  must  be 
made.  Thus,  "  The  Campaign  "  of  Addison,  a  fair  speci- 
men of  the  poetry  of  the  prize-medal  order,  which  to  the 
English  is  generally  so  distasteful,  receives  his  praise  as 
"an  excellent  model  of  a  becoming  and  classical  style." 
True,  he  recognizes  thoroughly  that  it  is  poor  of  its  kind; 
but  then  each  verse  is  full  and  perfect  in  itself,  the  epi- 
thets are  well-chosen,  the  countries  have  noble  names, 
and  there  are  pretty  turns  of  oratorical  address.  All  the 
beauties  which  the  Frenchman  sees  plainly  are  hardly 
visible  to  the  Englishman,  who  simply  feels  that  outside 
of  half  a  dozen  lines  the  poem  is  lifeless  and  insipid. 
Coming  down  to  modern  times,  the  very  words  with 
which  he  closes  the  work,  "I  prefer  Alfred  de  Musset  to 
Tennyson,"  make  us  conscious  of  the  wide  difference  in 
tastes  and  sentiments  between  the  two  peoples.  But  it  is 
a  thing  that  has  only  to  be  recognized.  There  is  no  need 
of  our  quarrelling  with  it. 

At  the  same  time,  there  is  always  a  tendency  to  push 
the  doctrine  of  race  too  far,  and  Taine  has  strained  it  to 
its  extremest  limits.  It  is  in  race  and  climate,  indeed, 
that  he  finds  the  origin  of  the  leading  characteristics  of 
English  literature.  To  him  the  Englishman  has  always 
been  a  barbarian  —  in  no  mean  sense,  be  it  understood. 
A  barbarian  he  continues  to  be.  Modified  by  centuries  of 
cultivation,  he  is  still,  under  the  surface,  the  genuine  rep- 
resentative of  those  fierce  warriors  whose  chief  pleasures 
were  to  be  found  in  fighting,  gorging,  and  guzzling;  who, 
with  the  hearts  of  lions  and  the  stomachs  of  ostriches, 
were  never  happy  save  in  slaughtering  foes  or  washing 
down  half-cooked  pieces  of  boar's  meat  with  huge  bump- 
ers of  mead,  quaffed  from  drinking-cups  made  of  the 
horns  of  wild  bulls.  A  lineal  descendant  of  the  Vikings, 
he,  like  them,  loves  the  battle  and  the  storm,  as  well  in 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  277 

literature  as  in  life.  Civilize  him,  and  place  him  in  a 
country  where  the  skies  are  sombre  and  the  climate  cold, 
where  it  is  often  dark  in  the  middle  of  the  day,  where, 
when  it  is  not  rainy,  it  is  foggy,  where  comfort  is  only 
attained  by  labor,  where  the  struggle  for  existence  is  so 
fierce  that  large  numbers  must  nearly  work  themselves 
to  death  to  keep  from  dying  —  place  him  where  he  has 
such  surroundings,  and  life  seems  to  him  a  constant  battle. 
Hence  arises  in  him  melancholy,  the  idea  of  duty,  lofty 
contempt  for  outward  show,  stern  and  heroic  courage. 
Seriousness  becomes  habitual.  It  enters  into  his  charac- 
ter so  completely  that  he  even  amuses  himself  in  a  mel- 
ancholy manner.  When  the  Protestant  religion  comes 
along  with  its  contemptuous  rejection  of  external  forms, 
he  takes  to  it  naturally.  Its  enthronement  of  conscience 
as  the  supreme  guide,  its  exaltation  of  moral  over  physi- 
cal or  intellectual  beauty,  its  belief  in  an  ever-present, 
perfect  God,  seeing  all  things,  judging  all  things,  still 
further  intensify  the  native  seriousness  of  his  disposition, 
deepen  it  often  into  gloom.  Thus  thoroughly  ingrained 
into  the  character,  it  manifests  itself  everywhere  in  the 
literature.  This,  in  a  few  words,  is  Taine's  idea.  Again 
and  again  he  returns  to  it.  That  there  is  truth  in  it  not 
many  will  deny;  that  it  is  the  whole  truth,  that  it  has 
even  half  the  influence  which  he  imputes  to  it,  few  close 
students  of  our  literature  will  admit.  One  cannot  help 
feeling,  in  reading  many  brilliant  but  highly-drawn  pas- 
sages in  this  work  which  treat  of  the  effect  of  race,  that 
Calvin,  with  his  stern  creed,  his  deification  of  duty,  his 
lofty  conception  of  personal  purity,  was  only  saved  from 
being  Taine's  typical  Englishman  by  the  unaccommodat- 
ing fact  of  his  being  a  Frenchman.  Writing  an  account 
of  English  literature  in  accordance  with  a  preconceived 
theory,  the  author  has  not  only  exaggerated  English 


278    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

seriousness  up  almost  to  the  point  of  caricature,  but  he 
has  been  led  by  it  to  ascribe  to  the  men  of  the  race  what 
is  true  only  of  the  men  of  a  particular  period.  The  same 
characteristics,  for  instance,  which  the  modern  French- 
man finds  in  Addison  are  found  also  by  the  modern  Eng- 
lishman. To  the  former  Addison's  ideas  are  common- 
place; so  they  are  to  the  latter.  Taine  assures  us  that 
Johnson's  essays  are  a  "national  food,"  though  to  a 
Frenchman  they  would  seem  dull  and  insipid.  Whether 
they  were  ever  a  national  food  or  not,  they  certainly  seem 
dull  and  insipid  to  Englishmen  now,  who  accordingly 
never  read  them.  Race  and  climate  are  great  influ- 
ences. It  is  the  extravagant  estimate  put  upon  them 
which  will  ultimately  lead  to  a  denial  of  their  having 
any  influence  at  all. 

As  regards  the  details  of  his  criticisms,  the  subject  is 
too  vast  to  admit  of  much  remark.  But  in  it  the  author 
is  at  his  best.  If  there  is  little  that  is  original  in  what 
he  says  of  inferior  writers,  with  the  leading  ones  the  case 
is  different.  There  he  is  always  fresh,  suggestive,  strik- 
ing, and,  what  is  even  better,  fully  appreciative  both  of 
merits  and  defects.  To  be  sure,  there  must  always  be 
differences  of  opinion.  There  are  not  likely  to  be  many 
who  will  agree  with  the  high  estimate  placed  upon  Ben 
Jonson,  as  compared  with  other  dramatists  of  his  age, 
particularly  with  Beaumont  and  Fletcher.  Outside  of 
lyric  composition,  in  which  his  genius  stood  on  a  level 
with  Shakespeare's,  Jonson  could  hardly  claim  any  such 
conspicuous  superiority  as  is  here  accorded  him ;  and  the 
general  neglect  into  which  he  has  fallen  shows  strongly 
how  little  it  is  that  traditional  reputation  can  do  for  a 
man,  save  with  critics,  commentators,  and  historians  of 
literature.  It  matters  not  that  he  was  the  literary  auto- 
crat of  his  own  time,  that  his  age  rated  him  full  as  high 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  279 

as  Shakespeare,  if  not  much  higher.  His  preeminent 
position  then  was  due  largely  to  extraneous  causes,  in  no 
small  measure  to  his  vast  acquirements.  For  learning  is 
always  apt  to  impress  one's  contemporaries  far  more  than 
wisdom,  or  even  genius  —  a  providentially  blessed  ar- 
rangement in  a  world  where  it  is  so  hard  to  counterfeit 
the  former,  and  so  easy  to  counterfeit  the  latter;  where, 
indeed,  it  takes  usually  a  century  to  find  out  definitely 
whether  a  given  individual  has  been  a  wise  man  or  a  fool. 
But,  singularly  enough,  there  has  nowhere  been  drawn 
so  satisfactory  a  picture  of  our  great  epic  poet,  with  whom 
of  all  men  a  Frenchman  might  be  supposed  to  have  little 
in  common.  After  the  deluge  of  indiscriminate  eulogy 
that  has  been  poured  upon  Milton,  it  is  refreshing  to 
come  across  a  writer  who  sees  clearly  the  special  charac- 
teristics of  his  genius,  and  points  out  plainly  wherein  his 
strength  and  weakness  lay;  above  all,  one  who  is  not 
afraid  to  set  forth  sharply  the  truth  in  regard  to  that 
wonderful  compound  of  sublime  verse  and  prosy  meta- 
physics which  make  up  the  "Paradise  Lost."  Perhaps  it 
is  only  a  foreigner  who  would  have  ventured  to  express 
so  bluntly  the  feeling  we  all  secretly  entertain  that  Mil- 
ton's Adam  is  very  much  of  a  prig;  who  would  assure  us 
so  strongly  that,  in  a  literary  point  of  view,  there  is  full 
justification  for  that  carnal  sympathy  we  all  have  with 
the  fallen  archangel,  a  sympathy  so  profound  that  only 
an  ample  supply  of  grace  can  enable  the  most  orthodox 
reader  to  wish  success  to  his  opponents.  In  the  criticism 
of  later  writers,  it  will  seem  to  most  men  that  Words- 
worth has  not  received  that  justice  to  which  he  is  en- 
titled by  his  ability  and  the  influence  which,  in  spite  of 
absurd  theories  and  insular  narrowness,  he  has  exerted. 
It  is  noticeable  here  that  Taine  holds  steadily  to  the  view, 
generally  entertained  by  the  poet's  contemporaries  both 


280    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

in  England  and  on  the  Continent,  that  Byron  was  the 
greatest  product  of  the  literary  revival  that  began  with 
the  close  of  the  last  century;  and  that  he  follows  Goethe, 
and,  for  that  matter,  Byron  himself,  in  regarding  Don 
Juan  as  his  masterpiece — both  being  views  to  which  the 
English,  after  years  of  depreciation,  seem  on  the  point  of 
returning. 

Of  this  work  there  is  one  thing  more  to  be  said  in  con- 
clusion. Whatever  other  faults  it  has,  it  is  not  dull.  The 
reader  may  dissent;  he  may  be  irritated;  he  may,  if  of  a 
certain  class,  be  disgusted;  but  he  will  never  be  bored. 
The  marvellous  vivacity  and  grace  which  make  French 
prose  the  most  attractive  of  reading  have  not  evaporated 
by  transfusion  into  a  foreign  tongue.  The  translation,  as 
a  whole,  is  well  executed.  We  have  the  author's  own 
certificate  as  to  its  faithfulness;  and,  in  spite  of  some 
expressions  and  idioms  that  are  not  yet  known  to  classic 
English,  and  are  never  likely  to  be,  it  also  justifies  his 
additional  testimony  as  to  its  elegance. 


MORLEY'S  ROUSSEAU1 

By  Auguste  Laugel 
(Paris  Letter,  dated  July  30,  1873) 

Mr.  Morley  has  done  for  Rousseau  what  he  had  done 
already  for  Voltaire.  He  has  not  simply  written  his 
biography  —  he  has  made  this  biography  the  ground,  the 
first  plan  of  a  philosophical  and  political  picture  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  Judged  at  this  long  distance  of  a 
century,  these  two  men,  Voltaire  and  Rousseau,  assume 
now  very  different  proportions.  Voltaire  had  more  prac- 
tical effect  in  his  own  age,  and  Rousseau  in  the  age  which 
followed  him.  Voltaire,  though  he  advocated  so  many 
changes,  appears  to  us  as  a  conservative,  and  Rousseau 
as  the  very  genius  of  revolution  and  of  socialism.  Vol- 
taire is  more  really  humane  and  philanthropic,  though 
he  wrote  for  the  great;  and  Rousseau,  who  wrote,  so  to 
speak,  against  the  great,  was  at  heart  a  despot,  a  hater 
of  mankind.  Voltaire  was  wanting  in  sentiment,  but  he 
had  an  exquisite  urbanity,  and  he  hated  cruelty  with  a 
sort  of  noble  fervor;  Rousseau  was  always  in  tears,  over- 
flowing with  sensibility,  but  his  sensibility  belonged  to 
the  nervous  temperament,  and  his  soul  was  really  tuned 
and  formed  like  the  souls  of  the  Terrorists  of  the  French 
Revolution. 

The  secret  of  all  his  political  and  philosophical  work 
must  be  sought  for  in  his  life,  and  it  is  with  much  reason 
that  Mr.  Morley  devotes  so  many  chapters  to  his  youth, 
and  to  his  wandering  life  in  Savoy  and  Switzerland.  One 
can  hardly  read  a  few  pages  in  the  two  volumes  of  Mr. 

1  Rousseau.  By  John  Morley.  New  York:  Scribner,  Welford  &  Armstrong. 
Two  volumes.   1873. 


282    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

Morley  without  being  referred  to  the  "Confessions." 
The  "Confessions"  is  in  fact  Rousseau's  great  work,  his 
enduring  work;  for  his  "Essays,"  his  "Contrat  Social," 
his  "Emile,"  his  "Nouvelle  Heloise,"  can  hardly  be  read 
now  from  beginning  to  end  without  tedium.  There  is  in 
them  something  so  utterly  false,  so  unreal,  that  one 
wonders  how  the  French  society  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury could  have  been  fed  so  long  on  such  unsubstantial 
nourishment.  These  books,  notwithstanding  their  mag- 
nificent style,  strike  us  as  do  the  fashions  of  another  age. 
It  seems  as  if  the  dresses  of  the  Empire  or  the  Directory 
could  never  have  been  really  worn.  Is  the  "Nouvelle  He- 
loise" really  a  love-story  —  this  perpetual  preaching  on 
love  —  this  eternal  confusion  and  distinction  of  virtu- 
ous vice  and  vicious  virtue?  Give  me  rather  the  letters 
of  Heloise  and  Abelard,  or  the  pastoral  of  Daphne  and 
Chloe,  or  the  short  ode  to  Sappho.  Is  "Emile"  a  treatise 
on  education?  Take  me  to  the  wild  Indians  or  to  any 
tribe  of  savages  rather  than  to  a  people  of  Emiles.  I 
would  rather  die  at  once  than  be  so  ennuye.  Is  the 
"Contrat  Social"  the  gospel  of  a  new  political  faith? 
What  could  be  more  unreal,  more  fantastic  than  a  theory 
founded  on  the  supposition  that  men  in  the  woods, 
troglodytes,  formed  a  compact,  invented  the  ballot  and 
universal  suffrage?  What  we  call  "the  state"  is  not,  and 
never  was,  an  initial  cause.  It  is  an  effect,  the  everchang- 
ing  effect,  of  long  centuries  of  culture  and  civilization. 

But  the  errors  which  were  proved  so  dangerous,  during 
the  Terror,  of  the  "Contrat  Social,"  as  well  as  the  errors 
of  the  "Emile,"  can  all  be  traced  to  the  same  cause, 
which  must  be  found  in  the  "Confessions."  What  a  dis- 
tance there  is  between  the  "Confessions"  of  St.  Augus- 
tine and  those  of  Rousseau!  Both  represent  themselves 
as  great  sinners,  but  one  is  almost  as  proud  of  his]  sins 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  283 

as  the  other  is  ashamed  of  them.  St.  Augustine  is  the 
founder  of  the  doctrine  of  grace  and  of  election;  in  his 
eyes,  man  deserves  nothing  from  the  hands  of  God;  he 
owes  everything  to  the  generosity,  to  the  goodness,  of  the 
Almighty.  All  the  doctrines  of  Calvin,  of  Jansen,  of 
Pascal,  are  in  germ  in  the  "Confessions"  of  St.  Augus- 
tine. Rousseau's  "  Confessions  "  are  conceived  in  a  totally 
different  spirit ;  he  uses  his  sins  simply  as  weapons  against 
society;  instead  of  believing  in  the  total  depravity  of 
man,  he  believes  in  the  perfection  of  the  individual, 
isolated  man;  he  endows  his  ideal  natural  man  with  all 
the  virtues;  his  vices,  his  faults  are  only  forced  upon  him 
by  a  forced  state  of  society.  Rousseau  himself  is,  so  to 
speak,  this  natural  man,  moving  among  a  corrupt  people, 
in  conflict  with  civilization.  He  is  a  solitaire  among 
millions;  he  cannot  dress  like  anybody  else;  he  invents  a 
style,  and  speaks  of  the  sublimities  of  nature  in  a  manner 
quite  unknown  in  an  age  of  small  verses,  of  well-cut 
French  parterres,  like  the  parterres  of  Versailles  and  of 
St.  Cloud.  He  teaches  mothers  to  nurse  their  own  chil- 
dren; his  fimile  must  learn  a  trade;  and  such  is  the  influ- 
ence of  the  new  teacher  that  we  see  even  now,  in  the 
palace  of  Versailles,  traces  of  the  handicraftsmanship  of 
Louis  XVI.  This  revolution  can  be  compared,  to  a  cer- 
tain extent,  to  what  has  been  called  in  our  time  in  Eng- 
land muscular  Christianity,  and  so  far  had  some  good 
effects;  but  the  naturalism  of  Rousseau  had  much  wider 
consequences  in  the  moral  order.  Open  any  book  you 
like,  written  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
read  any  speech  you  may  choose  of  the  Constituent 
Assembly  or  the  Convention,  and  you  will  find  marks  of 
the  deep  impression  produced  by  the  teachings  of  Rous- 
seau. The  whole  of  society  seems  pervaded  with  the 
poisonous  doctrine  which  exonerates  the  individual  man 


284    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

and  throws  all  responsibilities  on  the  ideal,  unknowable, 
invisible  "state."  At  least,  when  Louis  XIV  proudly 
said,  "l'etat  c'est  moi,"  he  assumed  a  responsibility,  he 
undertook  to  make  France  great,  glorious,  and  pros- 
perous. But  what  will  become  of  a  state  in  which  every 
man  considers  himself  as  perfect,  will  attempt  no  strug- 
gle with  his  own  passions,  spends  his  days  in  glorified 
selfishness,  and  expects  from  the  "state"  the  gratifica- 
tion of  all  his  wishes,  desires,  and  even  caprices? 

Rousseau  tells  us  how  he  was  walking  from  Paris  to 
Vincennes,  on  a  visit  to  Diderot,  and  felt  suddenly  in- 
spired, entranced,  by  seeing  in  a  newspaper  the  announce- 
ment of  the  following  theme  propounded  by  the  Academy 
of  Dijon:  "Has  the  revival  of  science  contributed  to 
purify  or  to  corrupt  manners?"  Of  course  Rousseau 
pleaded  the  cause  of  ignorance  against  science.  This 
paradoxical  essay,  written,  as  Rousseau  himself  con- 
fesses, without  conviction,  determined  however  the  direc- 
tion of  his  entire  intellectual  career.  He  entered  the 
lists  as  an  enemy  of  civilization,  of  all  conventions,  of 
all  historical  forces.  He  was  not  a  charlatan;  he  con- 
structed for  himself  a  sort  of  belief  in  the  wickedness  of 
society  and  the  intrinsic  virtue  and  perfection  of  man. 
He  was  a  visionary;  every  eye  can  perceive  the  defects 
of  society,  but  every  eye  cannot  see  the  ideal  Emile.  His 
brain  was  certainly  somewhat  diseased,  for  he  had  all  his 
life  that  strange  delirium  of  persecution  which  is  a  com- 
mon symptom  of  impending  madness.  Rousseau  lived 
in  a  land  of  dreams,  he  was  essentially  anti-scientific, 
anti-positivist.  Mr.  Morley  justly  remarks  that  the 
"Spirit  of  Laws"  of  Montesquieu  had  initiated  a  true 
method  for  the  study  of  history  and  legislation,  of  a 
method  founded  upon  facts:  "The  Discours,"  says  he, 
"  was  the  beginning  of  a  movement  in  an  exactly  oppo- 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  285 

site  direction;  that  is,  away  from  patient  collection  of 
wide  multitudes  of  facts  relating  to  the  conditions  of 
society,  towards  the  promulgation  of  arbitrary  systems 
of  absolute  social  dogmas." 

This  dogmatism  culminated  in  the  French  Revolution 
and  the  various  constitutions  which  were  presented  to  the 
French  people  by  political  dictators  amidst  thunder  and 
lightning,  as  a  revelation  from  God;  but,  long  before  the 
Revolution,  the  national  mind  had  been  permeated  by 
it.  It  is  so  much  easier  to  drift  into  theories  and  dreams, 
to  talk  of  sensibility,  to  shed  tears  over  humanity,  than 
to  get  possession  of  hard  facts,  of  statistics,  to  make 
calculations,  to  enter  into  the  details  of  administration! 
The  old  regime,  nursed  with  the  "Nouvelle  Helolise"  and 
the  impracticable  "Contrat  Social,"  became  quite  imbe- 
cile, unable  to  solve  the  smallest  problems.  What  pro- 
duced the  French  Revolution?  —  the  inability  to  pay  a 
debt  of  six  hundred  millions,  a  sum  which  seems  to  us  a 
mere  trifle.  The  system  of  taxation  was  ridiculous,  and 
nobody  knew  how  to  change  it.  What  is  less  known  is 
the  incapacity  of  the  revolutionists  as  administrators  and 
financiers.  This  incapacity  was  not  the  result  of  a  sub- 
jective defect;  it  arose  from  the  false  method  which  Rous- 
seau had  originated,  from  the  mania  of  big  words  and  the 
contempt  of  small  facts.  Tocqueville  has  well  proved 
that  the  whole  system  of  centralization,  which  is  gener- 
ally considered  as  the  work  of  the  Convention  and  of 
Napoleon,  is  really  the  work  of  Richelieu,  of  Louis  XIV, 
and  of  the  ministers  of  Louis  XV.  Even  at  this  time  we 
have  many  of  the  taxes  of  the  old  regime.  There  was 
little  administrative  originality  in  the  Revolutionary 
school,  because  it  was  always  in  a  sphere  of  abstract 
dogma.  To  this  day  the  Republican  and  Socialist  parties 
have  remained  faithful  to  the  doctrines  of  the  "Social 


286    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

Contract";  and  this  is  the  reason  why  the  germ  of 
Csesarism  is  concealed  in  the  French  ideal  of  a  republic. 
Gambetta  would  make  no  objection  to  these  words:  "As 
nature  gives  to  each  man  an  absolute  power  over  all  his 
members,  so  the  social  pact  gives  to  the  body  politic  an 
absolute  power  over  all  its  members."  Can  we  not  find 
the  theory  of  what  is  called  by  the  modern  Jacobins  the 
imperative  mandate  in  these  words :  "Sovereignty,  being 
only  the  exercise  of  the  general  will,  can  never  be  alien- 
ated; and  the  sovereign,  who  is  only  a  collective  being, 
can  only  be  represented  by  himself;  the  power  may  be 
transmitted,  but  not  the  will.  Sovereignty  is  indivisible, 
not  only  in  principle,  but  in  object."  The  sections  of 
the  Parisian  populace  held  no  other  doctrines  when  they 
dictated  their  will,  amidst  glittering  bayonets,  to  the 
frightened  Convention;  and  Robespierre,  in  his  Declara- 
tion of  Rights,  only  echoed  Rousseau  when  he  wrote: 
"The  sovereignty  resides  in  the  people;  it  is  one  and 
indivisible,  imprescriptible  and  inalienable."  Rousseau 
himself  dimly  foresaw  the  dangers  of  a  theory  which 
considers  all  men  as  detached  atoms  of  the  same  weight; 
and  in  his  constitutional  scheme  for  Poland  he  insisted 
upon  the  advantages  of  federal  governments.  In  a  large 
country  like  France  —  without  any  federal  states,  any 
distinct  provinces  —  ten  millions  of  electors,  with  un- 
bounded equal  and  inalienable  rights,  forbidden  to  dele- 
gate their  sovereignty  for  a  limited  number  of  years  to 
any  representatives,  must  either  destroy  each  other  or 
abdicate  into  the  hands  of  a  dictator.  He  felt  at  times 
that  perfect  equality  was  a  dream,  and  spoke  of  elec- 
tive aristocracy.  But  on  the  whole  the  Anglo-Saxon 
idea  of  government  was  distasteful  to  him;  and  he 
went  so  far  as  to  say  that  there  was  no  liberty  at  all 
in  England.  He  was  democratic  and  despotic,  and  con- 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  287 

sidered  even  the  separation  of  church  and  state  as  an 
abomination. 

As  Mr.  Morley  often  justly  observes,  Rousseau  ignored 
history;  he  drew  all  his  conceptions  from  his  imagination; 
he  ignored  the  influences  of  race,  of  accumulated  forces, 
of  habit,  of  education,  of  nationality.  He  was  a  destroyer, 
an  iconoclast,  a  hater  of  the  past;  but  he  was  at  the  same 
time  a  prophet.  His  dangerous  catechism  is  easily  under- 
stood by  the  masses.  He  says  to  every  man  who  suffers: 
"  You  suffer  not  by  your  own  fault,  but  by  the  fault  of  the 
state,  of  the  kings,  of  the  priests,  of  the  laws,  of  the  rich, 
of  the  nobles.  Christianity  has  promised  to  all  men  the 
blessings  of  eternal  life.  I  offer  to  you  this  visible  world ; 
it  is  all  your  own.  You  can,  by  legislation,  make  your- 
self king,  priest,  lord,  dictator." 

I  have  not  been  able  to  do  sufficient  justice  to  the  work 
of  Mr.  Morley.  He  has  shown  in  these  new  volumes  the 
qualities  he  had  already  shown  in  his  "Voltaire"  —  a 
perfect  knowledge  of  his  subject,  a  catholic  sympathy 
for  all  the  manifestations  of  thought.  His  feelings  as  a 
gentleman  have  often  been  revolted  by  the  actions  of 
Rousseau,  but  his  respect  for  genius  has  always  given 
dignity  to  his  most  severe  criticisms. 


CHARLES  SUMNER 
By  C.  C.  Nott 
(March  19,  1874) 

The  passing  tribute  which  the  world  seeks  to  render 
to  a  great  man  at  his  death  is  never  a  record  of  both  his 
virtues  and  his  faults.  By  it,  however,  we  may  measure 
approximately  the  estimate  which  mankind  for  the  time 
places  upon  his  character  and  works,  and  judge  with 
tolerable  accuracy  whether  he  belonged  at  his  end  to  the 
present  or  the  past.  The  two  deaths  which  have  fallen 
upon  the  country  during  the  present  month  present  this 
contrast.  Mr.  Fillmore's  shows  how  small  a  dot  on  the 
chart  of  history  a  Presidential  term  a  century  hence  will 
appear.  The  newspapers  have  had  to  remind  their  readers 
that  he  was  President,  and  have  had  little  to  say  besides 
speaking  approvingly  of  his  fair  character  and  patient  in- 
dustry and  honorable  impartiality.  These  are  not  virtues 
to  be  lightly  spoken  of,  but  they  do  not  fill  the  measure 
of  greatness.  The  Presidential  office  by  usage  takes  a 
man  out  of  an  active  participation  in  the  affairs  of  the 
country,  and  as  his  term  of  office  drops  into  the  past 
his  works  seem  to  follow  it  and  not  him.  Mr.  Sumner, 
one  would  have  said,  had  about  reached  the  end  of  his 
career,  but  the  feeling  which  has  been  universally  evinced 
shows  that  the  career  had,  in  fact,  not  yet  closed  when 
death  divided  him  from  it.  Always  an  antagonist  of 
some  one,  and  never  knowing  a  moment  of  political  calm 
or  peace,  he  goes  down  to  the  grave  lamented  by  that 
class  which  has  learned  to  lean  almost  exclusively  upon 
him,  and  respected  by  the  great  body  of  those  with  whom 
he  differed  and  with  whom  he  warred. 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  289 

We  do  not  measure  this  respect  by  the  adulation  which 
has  been  poured  out  at  his  obsequies.  Our  public  press 
speaks  well  rather  than  discriminatingly  of  the  dead. 
The  spectacle  of  senators  choked  with  grief  at  the  loss 
of  a  man  who  did  not  greatly  respect  them,  and  who 
spent  much  of  the  failing  strength  of  his  latest  years  in 
dealing  them  the  heaviest  blows  that  he  was  capable  of 
giving,  is  a  spectacle  which  does  not  move  the  heart  nor 
mislead  the  understanding.  Nevertheless,  both  now  and 
hereafter,  it  must  be  seen  that  his  death  produced  a 
great  effect  upon  the  public  mind,  attributable  to  some- 
thing more  than  gratitude  for  past  services  or  a  sense  of 
dependence  upon  services  yet  to  come.  The  public  have 
never  leaned  upon  Mr.  Sumner,  nor  can  it  be  said  that 
they  have  felt  for  him  any  of  that  affection  which  is  fre- 
quently bestowed  on  public  men.  For  a  brief  period  — 
that  is,  during  the  exciting  days  of  the  war  —  they 
went  over  toward  him,  and  his  extreme  views  became  for 
the  time  their  views ;  but  for  the  greater  part  of  his  long 
public  life  he  has  been  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  the  majority. 
It  was  inevitable  that  it  should  be  so,  for  the  working  life 
which  he  embraced  was  the  advocacy  of  a  weak  minority; 
and  this  advocacy  consisted  in  proving  to  all  men  who 
differed  with  him  that  he  upheld  the  right  and  they  the 
wrong.  If  he  had  gone  down  a  few  years  sooner,  there 
would  have  been  a  sense  of  relief  in  many  men's  minds, 
but,  as  it  is,  he  has  fought  out  well-nigh  all  his  battles, 
and  in  his  fall  nearly  all  men  are  ready  to  forget  the  dis- 
quietude he  has  caused  them,  and,  remembering  only  his 
undaunted  devotion,  yield  him  the  tribute  of  respect  and 
admiration. 

His  personal  character  is  easily  analyzed,  and  in  it 
there  is  little  or  nothing  to  be  unfolded  or  explained. 
Every  man  who  has  intelligently  read  the  daily  news- 


290    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

papers  has  seen  the  full  picture.  Devotedness  and  cul- 
ture, two  qualities  not  likely  to  be  united  in  popular 
belief,  were  his  chief  characteristics.  On  the  one  side 
there  was  the  giving  up  of  his  entire  service  to  what  he 
believed  to  be  the  greatest  of  causes  upon  the  world's 
stage,  and,  on  the  other,  an  elaboration  in  every  detail 
of  his  public  and  private  life.  His  policy  was  equally 
clear.  There  are  no  mysteries  to  be  explained  or  contra- 
dictions to  be  reconciled.  It  was  a  transparent  policy, 
and  consisted  simply  in  always  attacking  by  the  most 
open  means.  Upon  the  chessboard  of  statesmanship  be 
was  no  strategist,  and  if  he  ever  went  upon  it,  it  was  to 
knock  to  pieces  the  moves  of  others.  Of  all  our  statesmen 
who  were  prominent  before,  during,  and  after  the  war 
(those  three  differing  stages  of  our  history  equivalent  in 
their  conditions  to  three  generations  of  life),  he  was  the 
only  one  who  has  not  been  charged  with  inconsistency. 
This  cannot  be  attributed  to  a  solitary  rectitude  of  char- 
acter, but  to  the  fact  that  he  aimed  from  the  beginning 
at  an  object  which  could  only  be  attained  at  the  end. 
He  drew  a  line  at  the  first  so  far  in  advance  of  what  was, 
and  so  close  to  what  was  to  be,  that  in  the  then  condition 
of  things  it  must  have  remained  an  impracticability.  In 
his  march  toward  this  line  he  was  harassed  and  checked 
and  apparently  beaten,  but,  so  far  as  concerned  his  indi- 
viduality, he  never  halted  or  deviated.  From  time  to 
time  concessions  were  made,  not  in  the  hope  of  satisfying 
him,  but  to  satisfy  the  public  as  they  drew  nearer  to 
Mr.  Sumner's  position.  He  took  these  concessions  as 
they  came,  but  never  upon  the  condition  that  he  would 
not  immediately  demand  more.  In  fact,  he  never  gave 
up  all  that  in  his  extremest  views  he  sought  to  attain, 
and  hence  he  was  never  inconsistent.  Most  assuredly, 
what  he  was  at  the  end,  that  he  had  been  at  the  begin- 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  291 

ning.  Events  had  moved  forward  faster  and  further 
than  ever  before  in  the  history  of  the  world,  but  they 
had  not  quite  reached  the  line  of  rest  which  he  traced 
when,  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  his  public  life  began. 
But  for  these  reasons  it  must  be  said  Mr.  Sumner  did 
not  arrive  at  the  full  responsibilities,  nor  indeed  assume 
the  true  duties,  of  a  statesman.  We  do  not  for  a  moment 
tolerate  the  vulgar  cry,  not  yet  forgotten,  that  he  was 
"nothing  but  an  Abolition  orator,"  and  we  fully  believe 
the  statement  that  he  made  about  the  time  of  his  last 
reelection,  in  which,  with  honestly  earned  self -approval, 
he  pointed  to  his  faithful,  assiduous  diligence,  extending 
to  every  legislative  duty  which  had  been  confided  to 
him.  Neither  do  we  doubt  that  while  ordinary  politi- 
cians derided  him  as  a  man  absorbed  in  "the  negro 
question,"  he  was  really  giving  more  care  and  attention 
to  ordinary  legislative  topics  than  nine-tenths  of  the 
Senate.  Nevertheless,  he  took  into  his  guardianship  a 
part  rather  than  the  whole,  and  remained  always  some- 
thing more  than  a  magnificent  advocate  but  something 
less  than  a  true  statesman.  Statesmanship  is  the  science 
of  guiding  and  governing  the  world  as  it  exists;  of  using 
present  means  for  the  redress  of  present  evils;  of  con- 
ceding wisely  where  concession  is  indispensable,  and  of 
leading  men  by  a  practical  road  though  toward  an  ideal 
end.  Such  a  science  requires  a  sense  of  guardianship  over 
the  whole;  the  sacrifice  of  much  that  is  a  matter  of  sincere 
conviction;  the  power  to  stop  short  of  what  may  have 
been  projected;  and  the  moral  courage  that  is  not  afraid 
of  an  honest  inconsistency.  At  the  beginning  of  this  half- 
century  it  was  the  office  of  true  statesmanship  to  educate 
as  rapidly  as  might  be  the  masters  for  emancipation  and 
the  slaves  for  freedom;  and  then  at  the  proper  time  to 
end  slavery  with  the  smallest  possible  jar  that  could  be 


292    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

given  to  the  social  system  of  the  country.  It  was  the 
policy  of  Mr.  Sumner  to  war  upon  slavery  by  all  consti- 
tutional means;  to  end  it  at  the  earliest  possible  moment 
regardless  of  all  consequences;  and  to  force  it  to  such 
extremes  that,  to  use  his  own  words,  it  would  "die  like  a 
rat  in  its  hole."  Such  being  his  nature,  there  has  never 
been  a  time  and  there  never  could  be  a  time  when  a  ma- 
jority of  the  people  would  have  confided  the  country  to 
his  care.  As  to  that  portion  of  the  people  who  have  of 
late  years  believed  in  him,  and  have  had  good  reason  to 
believe  in  him,  it  has  not  been  the  confidence  of  a  minority 
of  society  in  any  just  sense  of  the  term,  but  of  a  class  as 
against  other  classes.  In  the  great  battle  for  their  rights, 
they  knew  that,  if  he  was  not  supremely  wise,  he  was 
supremely  faithful;  but  the  confines  of  the  field  limited 
their  trust  in  his  judgment.  The  lack  of  practical  states- 
manship in  the  present  day  is  also  strongly  illustrated  by 
Mr.  Sumner's  public  life.  That  a  man  so  learned,  so 
painstaking,  so  unsparing  of  labor,  so  conversant  with 
the  experience  of  other  nations  and  our  own,  should  have 
done  so  little  to  perfect  the  practical  working  of  our 
Government  or  to  provide  for  the  actual  necessities  of 
the  people,  shows  how  completely  we  have  overlooked 
that  necessary  part  of  real  statesmanship.  To  understand 
it  fully,  we  have  but  to  glance  at  Mr.  Webster  preparing 
himself  for  legislative  work  by  reading  through  all  of 
the  English  statutes,  and  carefully  studying  every  work 
and  speech  and  pamphlet  that  had  been  published  on 
finance,  or  we  have  but  to  turn  back  to  that  earlier 
group  of  statesmen  who  not  merely  dealt  in  Declara- 
tions of  Independence,  but  brought  their  disorganized 
and  impoverished  country  into  the  rank  of  prosperous 
nations  by  every  practical  detail  of  intelligent  states- 
manship. 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  293 

The  niche  which  Mr.  Sumner  has  filled  in  our  history 
seems  to  have  been  built  for  him.  By  nature  and  by 
education  he  was  peculiarly  fitted,  not  for  persuading, 
pleasing,  instructing,  or  guiding  —  not,  in  short,  for  the 
ordinary  work  of  the  world,  but  for  extolling  what  he 
thought  was  noble  and  denouncing  what  he  thought 
was  wrong.  At  an  earlier  day,  he  would  not  have  had 
such  auditors,  and  at  a  later  he  would  not  have  had  such 
themes.  There  was  a  concurrence,  too,  of  time  and  place. 
Massachusetts  was  certainly  the  only  State  that  would 
have  sent  Mr.  Sumner  to  the  Senate,  and  was  probably 
the  only  State  that  would  have  upheld  him  as  firmly.  He 
entered  Congress  as  a  representative  man  from  the  only 
portion  of  the  country  ready  to  be  so  represented.  When 
Mr.  Sumner  went  abroad,  his  recovery  uncertain  and 
distant,  no  place-hunter  ventured  to  suggest  the  neces- 
sity of  having  an  active  man  in  his  stead,  and  the  State 
kept  his  chair  empty  —  a  constant  menace  to  the  South 
as  to  how  she  would  be  represented.  When  it  was  well 
known  that  he  would  be  unable  to  resume  his  duties, 
Massachusetts,  though  a  Free-soil  member  could  not  well 
be  spared  from  the  Senate,  reelected  him  by  the  unani- 
mous vote  of  one  House  and  the  almost  unanimous  vote 
of  the  other.  His  numerous  reflections  have  been  in 
part  avowals  that  what  the  State  did  in  former  times 
she  still  stands  by,  and  recognitions  of  the  fact  that  her 
own  history  in  the  conflict  with  slavery  was  almost 
identical  with  his.  Further:  it  had  been  his  painful  good- 
fortune  to  have  suffered  in  the  conflict  as  soldiers  suffer 
in  the  field.  The  blood  of  a  Massachusetts  senator  had 
literally  stained  the  Senate  Chamber  for  a  cause  which 
Massachusetts  believed  sacred,  and  a  deep  and  honest 
hero-worship  resolved  that  he  should  always  remain  in 
that  Senate,  a  witness  of  the  State's  fidelity  both  to 


294    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

the  cause  and  to  him.  Whether  he  would  have  been 
again  reelected  may  be  doubted.  The  resolution  of 
censure  was  a  trick  betimes  to  break  his  power  where  it 
was  strongest  —  in  the  sensibilities  of  the  people. 

It  may  be  that  not  the  least  useful  effect  of  his  life 
will  be  the  lofty  example  which  it  furnishes  to  young  men 
of  wealth  in  our  frivolous  and  mercenary  day.  In  youth 
he  practised  the  intellectual  discipline  of  age,  and  in  age 
he  was  actuated  by  the  undisciplined  earnestness  of 
youth.  The  small  fortune  which,  in  a  common  phrase, 
"was  just  enough  to  ruin  a  young  man,"  he  used  in 
the  work  of  self-culture.  We  may  note  his  manly  beauty 
and  fastidious  dress,  his  elegant  accomplishments  and 
hereditary  connection  with  the  fashionable  and  pleas- 
ure-seeking circles  of  society,  to  bring  out  the  con- 
trast of  his  work  on  the  American  Jurist,  the  re- 
ports of  the  Circuit  Court,  the  teaching  in  the  Law 
School,  his  edition  of  "Vesey,"  his  prolonged  study 
of  art  and  modern  languages,  and  his  assiduous  inter- 
course with  the  most  elevated  and  able  men  in  every 
land. 

As  to  his  absolute  integrity,  it  is  needless  for  his  eulo- 
gists to  speak.  To  say  that  no  Administration  ever 
bought  him  with  its  political  patronage;  that  he  never 
tried  to  debauch  his  party  with  the  same  plunder;  that 
he  never  used  his  place  to  rob  the  Government  or  to  prey 
upon  the  citizen;  that  suspicion  never  smirched  his  name 
with  charges  of  ill-gotten  gain  denied  with  artful  du- 
plicity; that  he  was  never  silent  when  he  believed  he 
ought  to  speak,  nor  voted  for  a  bill  when  he  knew  he 
ought  to  vote  against  it,  is  to  tell  men  what  they  already 
know  —  to  tell  them  that  the  sun  rose  yesterday  and  the 
day  before.  We  see  defects  in  his  character  and  errors 
in  his  course,  but  above  them  rises  the  majesty  of  a  pure 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  295 

life.  And  the  eulogy  that  he  would  have  preferred  him- 
self is  that  which  may  be  most  truly  pronounced  upon 
him:  his  life  was  devoted  to  an  unending  effort  to 
secure  for  a  wronged  and  degraded  race  the  rights  of 
men. 


PROFESSOR  JOSEPH  HENRY 

By  Simon  Newcomb 
(May  16,  1878) 

If  Mr.  Galton's  researches  on  hereditary  genius  were 
supplemented  by  equally  careful  ones  on  cases  of  genius 
which  appeared  to  be  entirely  sporadic,  we  might  find  an 
exhibit  yet  more  striking  than  that  with  which  he  pre- 
sented us.  It  is  certainly  worthy  of  note  that  the  man 
who,  during  the  present  generation,  has  exerted  the  most 
enduring  and  widespread  influence  upon  the  progress  of 
American  science,  is  not  known  to  have  had  a  blood  rela- 
tion of  intellectual  prominence.  His  ancestry  is  unknown, 
and  his  parentage  offers  no  features  of  interest.  Even  the 
year  of  his  birth  is  in  doubt  —  some  authorities  placing 
it  in  1797,  and  others  in  1799  or  even  later.  His  father 
died  when  the  son  was  still  very  young,  and  his  mother 
before  he  grew  up.  A  parish  library  supplied  him  with 
boyish  reading,  and  his  earlier  tastes  were  in  the  direc- 
tion of  romance  and  the  drama.  He  was  nearly  grown 
when  the  accidental  possession  of  a  copy  of  Robinson's 
"Mechanical  Philosophy"  turned  his  thoughts  towards 
natural  philosophy  and  led  him  to  seek  a  scientific  educa- 
tion at  the  Albany  Academy.  Here  he  made  himself  so 
good  a  name  as  to  be  taken  into  the  family  of  the  Patroon 
in  the  capacity  of  private  tutor.  Failing  physical  health 
led  to  his  spending  a  year  as  a  civil  engineer  in  the  west- 
ern part  of  the  State.  He  returned  home  with  a  robust 
constitution,  which  never  failed  him  throughout  his 
long  life.  He  declined  further  lucrative  employment  in 
the  same  capacity  to  accept  the  more  congenial  position 
of  a  professorship  at  the  Albany  Academy. 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  297 

It  was  while  a  professor  at  Albany  that  he  commenced 
the  brilliant  series  of  researches  in  electricity  on  which  his 
purely  scientific  reputation  principally  rests,  and  which 
culminated  in  the  discovery  of  the  principles  of  the  Morse 
telegraph.  If  we  compare  the  poverty  of  his  apparatus 
and  the  poverty  of  his  means  for  research  and  publica- 
tion with  the  importance  of  the  results  which  he  reached, 
we  may  accord  him  a  place  by  the  side  of  Faraday  as  an 
experimentalist.  He  became  the  sole  discoverer  of  one 
of  the  most  singular  forms  of  electrical  induction,  and 
was  among  the  first,  perhaps  the  very  first,  to  see  clearly 
the  laws  which  connected  the  transmission  of  electricity 
with  the  power  of  the  battery  employed.  One  of  the 
problems  to  which  he  devoted  himself  was  that  of  pro- 
ducing mechanical  effects  at  a  great  distance  by  the  aid 
of  an  electro-magnet  and  a  conducting  wire.  The  horse- 
shoe electro-magnet,  formed  by  winding  copper  wire 
around  a  bar  of  iron  bent  into  the  form  of  a  U,  had 
been  known  before  his  time,  and  it  was  also  known  that 
by  increasing  the  number  of  coils  of  wire  greater  force 
could  be  given  to  the  magnet  if  the  latter  were  near  the 
battery.  But  when  it  was  removed  to  a  distance,  the 
power  was  found  to  weaken  at  so  rapid  a  rate  that  the 
idea  of  using  the  electro-magnet  for  telegraphic  purposes 
seemed  hopeless.  Henry's  experiments  were  directed 
toward  determining  the  laws  of  electro-motive  force  from 
which  this  diminution  of  power  resulted,  and  led  to  the 
discovery  of  a  relation  between  the  number  of  coils  of 
wire  round  the  electro-magnet  and  the  construction  of 
the  battery  to  work  it.  He  showed  that  the  very  same 
amount  of  acid  and  zinc  arranged  in  one  way  would 
produce  entirely  different  effects  when  arranged  in 
another,  and  that  by  increasing  the  number  of  cells  in 
the  battery  there  was  no  limit  to  the  distance  at  which 


298    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

the  effects  might  be  felt.  It  only  remained  for  some  one 
to  invent  an  instrument  by  which  these  effects  should 
be  made  to  register  in  an  intelligible  manner,  to  com- 
plete the  electro-magnetic  telegraph,  and  this  was  done 
by  Morse.  Henry  himself  considered  the  work  of  an  in- 
ventor as  wholly  distinct  from  that  of  a  scientific  inves- 
tigator, and  would  not  protect  the  application  of  his 
discoveries,  nor  even  engage  in  the  work  of  maturing 
such  applications.  He  never  sought  to  detract  from 
Morse's  merits  as  the  inventor  of  the  magneto-electric 
telegraph,  but  did  on  one  occasion,  under  legal  process, 
give  a  history  of  the  subject  which  was  not  favorable  to 
Morse's  claim  to  the  exclusive  use  of  the  electro-magnet 
for  telegraphic  purposes.  Some  feeling  was  thus  excited; 
but  Henry  took  no  other  part  in  the  controversy  than  to 
ask  an  investigation  of  some  charges  against  himself  con- 
tained in  an  article  of  Morse's. 

In  1832  Professor  Henry  was  tendered  the  chair  of 
Natural  Philosophy  in  Princeton  College,  a  promotion 
which  he  accepted  with  great  diffidence.  The  change  was 
accompanied  with  a  great  increase  in  the  means  of  con- 
tinuing his  researches  in  electricity.  He  found  congenial 
society,  a  large  and  appreciative  circle  of  listeners,  large 
additions  to  his  supply  of  apparatus,  and  a  scientific 
society  glad  to  publish  his  researches.  Heretofore  his 
publications  were  mostly  confined  to  papers  in  Silliman,s 
Journal.  The  Transactions  of  the  American  Philosophi- 
cal Society  now  afforded  him  room  for  much  more  ex- 
tended memoirs,  and  enabled  him  very  soon  to  acquire  a 
European  reputation. 

In  1837  he  visited  Europe  and  made  the  acquaintance 
of  Faraday,  Wheatstone,  Bailey,  and  other  eminent  phys- 
icists, discussing  with  Wheatstone  their  projects  for  an 
electric  telegraph.  He  returned  to  his  lectures  with  the 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  299 

zest  and  vigor  acquired  by  this  exchange  of  views  with 
men  of  like  pursuits  with  himself,  and  held  his  place  as 
the  foremost  of  American  scientific  teachers  until  1846, 
when  he  was  called  to  an  entirely  different  sphere  of 
activity. 

Ten  years  before,  Congress  had  accepted  by  a  solemn 
act  the  curious  bequest  of  James  Smithson,  made  to  the 
United  States  in  trust,  "to  found  at  Washington  an  es- 
tablishment for  the  increase  and  diffusion  of  knowledge 
among  men."  The  will  gave  no  indications  whatever  as 
to  the  details  of  the  proposed  establishment,  and  long 
consideration  was  therefore  necessary  before  the  Govern- 
ment could  decide  upon  its  organization.  It  was  not 
until  1846  that  a  definite  plan  of  organization  was  estab- 
lished by  law.  When  this  was  done,  Professor  Henry  was 
at  once  looked  upon  as  preeminently  the  man  to  be  the 
principal  executive  officer  of  the  Institution.  He  accepted 
the  position  with  " reluctance,  fear,  and  trembling,"  upon 
the  urgent  solicitation  of  Professor  Bache.  To  describe 
what  he  did  during  the  thirty  years  of  his  connection 
with  it  would  be  to  write  the  history  of  the  Institution. 
We  shall,  therefore,  confine  ourselves  to  some  episodes  of 
a  special  interest  at  the  present  time,  hoping  to  revert 
to  the  subject  of  its  general  management  upon  a  future 
occasion.  From  the  beginning  two  different  views  of  the 
proper  direction  in  which  the  energies  of  the  establish- 
ment should  be  devoted  have  been  entertained.  There 
was  a  scientific  party  which  held  that  the  operations  of 
the  establishment  should  be  confined  strictly  within  the 
limits  prescribed  by  the  donor,  and  in  the  sense  in  which 
he  himself,  as  a  scientific  investigator,  would  naturally 
have  construed  his  own  words  —  in  fact,  that  it  should 
be  entirely  an  institution  for  scientific  research  and  pub- 
lication.   Another  party  was  desirous  of  giving  it  a 


300    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

larger  scope  and  wider  range,  including  literature  and 
art  as  well  as  science.  These  latter  views  were  naturally 
entertained  by  the  men  who  framed  the  plan  of  organiza- 
tion. Accordingly  we  find  that  the  act  alluded  to  pro- 
vided for  a  capacious  building,  with  suitable  rooms  or 
halls  for  the  reception  and  arrangement  upon  a  liberal 
scale  of  objects  of  natural  history,  for  a  library,  gallery  of 
art,  and  lecture-rooms,  and  for  the  reception  and  exhibi- 
tion of  "all  objects  of  art  and  of  foreign  and  curious 
research,"  of  objects  of  natural  history,  and  plants  and 
geological  specimens  belonging  or  hereafter  to  belong  to 
the  United  States,  which  may  be  in  the  city  of  Washing- 
ton. The  new  secretary,  of  course,  sympathized  entirely 
with  the  scientific  party,  who  considered  most  of  these  ob- 
jects as  foreign  to  the  proper  purpose  of  the  Institution, 
and  the  expenditure  of  money  upon  them  as  contrary 
to  the  expressed  intention  of  the  donor.  An  acrimonious 
controversy  thus  arose,  resulting  in  the  retirement  of 
a  large  minority  of  the  Board  of  Regents  and  several 
of  the  assistants  of  the  Institution.  The  whole  policy 
of  Henry  was  directed  towards  diminishing  as  far  as 
possible  the  expenditure  of  the  Smithsonian  fund  upon 
the  library,  the  building,  the  museum,  and  art-gallery,  by 
having  these  several  objects  provided  for  in  other  ways. 
He  got  the  library  removed  to  the  Capitol  and  deposited 
in  the  Library  of  Congress,  and  the  art-gallery  super- 
seded by  the  Corcoran  Gallery  of  Art.  The  impropriety 
of  charging  the  Smithsonian  fund  with  the  support  of  the 
Governmental  collections  was  so  obvious  that  Congress 
has  for  several  years  provided  for  the  maintenance  of  the 
National  Museum,  as  it  has  now  become,  in  connection 
with  the  Institution.  He  aimed  at  a  complete  separation 
of  the  Museum  from  the  Institution,  the  Government 
leasing  the  building  for  the  use  of  the  former,  while  the 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  301 

latter  should  find  more  modest  and  appropriate  but  less 
expensive  quarters.  This  project,  however,  he  did  not 
live  to  carry  out. 

Henry  was,  of  course,  the  authority  most  frequently 
and  regularly  consulted  by  the  Government  on  all  ques- 
tions which  arose  involving  applications  of  science  or  of 
scientific  principles.  His  greatest  services  to  the  Govern- 
ment were  rendered  as  a  member  of  the  Light-House 
Board,  a  position  which  he  held  from  the  time  the  Board 
was  organized.  His  principal  duties  were  at  first  to  en- 
quire into  the  various  methods  of  illumination,  and 
especially  to  test  the  oils  proposed  for  this  purpose.  Of 
late  years  he  began  to  investigate  the  subject  of  fog- 
signals,  which  led  to  a  very  extended  series  of  experi- 
mental researches  on  the  causes  which  influence  the 
propagation  of  sound  through  the  air,  and  which  some- 
times render  it  inaudible  at  comparatively  short  dis- 
tances. These  experiments  were  mostly  published  in  the 
annual  reports  of  the  Light-House  Board. 

The  idea  of  using  the  telegraph  for  communicating  the 
weather  reports  originated  with  Professor  Henry,  and 
was  put  in  operation  at  the  Institution  at  an  early  period 
of  his  connection  with  it.  Visitors  of  that  period  will  re- 
call the  large  map  of  the  United  States  which  hung  in  one 
of  the  public  halls,  on  which  the  state  of  the  weather  at 
many  points  of  the  country  was  indicated  by  marks 
pinned  to  the  map.  In  accordance  with  his  life  custom, 
as  soon  as  another  department  was  found  ready  to  con- 
tinue any  of  his  researches  with  a  prospect  of  success  he 
turned  them  over  to  it  without  any  reserve,  except  that  of 
receiving  due  credit.  The  subject  of  meteorology  was, 
in  1871,  left  by  him  to  the  signal  office. 

The  whole  course  of  Professor  Henry  was  marked  by 
an  elevation  of  character  entirely  in  keeping  with  his 


302    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

intellectual  force.  Placed  in  a  position  where  the  tempta- 
tion to  lend  the  use  of  his  name  to  commercial  enter- 
prises was  incessant,  he  so  studiously  avoided  every 
appearance  of  evil  that  the  shadow  of  suspicion  never 
rested  upon  him.  His  services  to  the  Government  in 
many  capacities,  especially  in  that  of  member  of  the 
Light-House  Board,  where  his  experiments  saved  it  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  dollars,  were  entirely  gratuitous. 
His  salary  was  paid  from  the  Smithsonian  bequest,  and 
he  never  asked  the  Government  for  a  dollar  on  account  of 
his  services.  An  elevated  but  genial  humor,  a  delicate 
poetic  taste,  a  memory  replete  with  anecdote,  a  refined, 
intellectual  face,  and  an  impressive  bearing  made  him 
one  of  the  most  valued  members  of  the  intellectual  society 
of  Washington.  One  of  his  most  remarkable  traits  was 
the  entire  absence  of  personal  feeling  against  those  by 
whom  he  felt  himself  wronged.  His  address  to  the  Board 
of  Regents  asking  an  investigation  of  charges  brought 
against  him  by  S.  F.  B.  Morse,  the  celebrated  inventor 
of  the  electro-magnetic  telegraph,  was  such  a  model  of 
elevated  sentiment,  and  breathed  such  purity  of  feeling, 
that  no  one  in  reading  it  could  doubt  the  result.  Like 
most  men  of  his  kind,  he  was  averse  to  controversy, 
and  we  believe  never  took  the  slightest  part  in  any  of  the 
disputes  with  which  his  name  was  sometimes  associated. 
As  Secretary  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution  he  is  entitled 
to  the  enduring  credit  of  preventing  a  permanent  misdi- 
rection of  its  activities,  and  this  of  itself  will  earn  him  the 
gratitude  of  men  of  science  in  generations  to  come. 


WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

By  W.  P.  Garrison 

(June  5,  1879) 

The  most  obvious  result  of  the  life  of  the  late  "William 
Lloyd  Garrison,  and  the  one  most  comprehensible  to  the 
present  generation,  is  the  abolition  of  negro  slavery  in 
1863  instead  of  at  some  indefinitely  later  period.  This, 
and  the  assurance,  as  Mr.  Phillips  remarked  in  his  funeral 
discourse,  that  slavery  will  never  be  reestablished  on  this 
continent,  his  countrymen  feel  that  they  owe  specially  to 
Mr.  Garrison,  and  it  forms,  of  course,  the  basis  of  all  the 
grateful  and  honorable  tributes  with  which  the  press  and 
the  pulpit  have  teemed  during  the  past  fortnight.  That 
the  service,  however  great  we  may  esteem  it,  was  no  more 
confined  to  his  native  land  than  his  fame  has  been  or 
memory  is  likely  to  be,  must  be  admitted  by  all  who  are 
capable  of  perceiving  its  political  as  well  as  its  moral 
bearings.  Mr.  Garrison  was  not  only  the  first  Abolitionist 
of  his  time,  he  was  also  the  most  Republican  of  Republi- 
cans. He  could  not  rest  or  be  silent  when  once  his  atten- 
tion had  been  drawn  to  the  shocking  contradiction  in- 
volved in  "the  Union  as  it  was"  in  his  early  manhood. 
He  saw  a  government  professedly  founded  on  the  broth- 
erhood of  man  —  on  the  idea,  as  we  said  last  week,  "that 
nobody  exists  for  anybody  else's  benefit,  and  that  every 
man  is  entitled  to  a  fair  opportunity  of  making  the  most 
of  himself "  —  and  yet  tolerating  and  providing  for  a 
system  which  expressly  denied  these  postulates.  The 
irrepressible  conflict  that  thereupon  arose  was  between 
the  modern  idea  for  which  Mr.  Garrison  spoke  and  the 
mediaeval  and  pagan  idea  to  which  the  slaveholders  held. 


304    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

If  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the 
people,  as,  thanks  to  this  conflict,  we  can  now  call  our 
own,  is  the  missionary  form  of  government,  destined 
ultimately  to  prevail  wherever  civilization  has  obtained, 
it  is  not  easy  to  overrate  the  influence  of  a  great  Repub- 
lic reforming  itself;  and  so  far  as  this  reformation  began 
with  Mr.  Garrison,  he  will  have  had  a  share  in  political 
changes  not  yet  consummated,  even  in  countries  where 
his  name  has  never  been  heard. 

The  indirect  consequences  of  his  anti-slavery  agitation 
are  most  readily  overlooked  now.  In  imagination  the 
colored  race  is  pictured  weeping  at  the  grave  of  its  bene- 
factor (hardly  known,  in  fact,  to  the  mass  of  them  in 
comparison  with  Grant  or  Lincoln)  whereas  Mr.  Garri- 
son was  as  truly  the  liberator  of  the  whites  as  of  the 
blacks.  The  very  success  of  his  endeavors  is  an  obstacle 
to  the  appreciation  of  his  merits  in  this  particular.  It  is 
almost  impossible  to  realize  the  condition  of  American 
society  fifty  years  ago,  when  Benjamin  Lundy's  zealous 
assistant  began  to  arouse  the  complacent  readers  of  the 
Genius  of  Universal  Emancipation.  We  no  longer  know 
what  it  is  to  live  in  a  community  in  which  one  subject, 
touching  the  foundations  of  the  government  not  less  than 
the  rights  of  man,  is  tabooed,  cannot  be  talked  about 
without  causing  uneasiness,  without  incurring  reproach, 
loss  of  position,  and  bodily  risk,  without  liability  to  arrest 
and  prosecution;  cannot,  if  discussed  in  the  press,  have 
the  freedom  of  the  mails.  We  must  fancy  the  Governor 
of  Vermont  entreating  the  Mayor  of  Okolona  to  suppress 
the  Southern  States,  or  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts 
offering  five  thousand  dollars  for  its  editor,  dead  or  alive, 
before  we  can  understand  the  full  significance  of  Mr. 
Garrison's  "I  will  be  heard."  That  voice,  crying  in  the 
wilderness  of  immoral  apathy  and  cowardly  submission, 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  305 

unloosed  the  tongues  and  the  consciences  of  thousands ; 
and  the  freedom  of  speech  thus  asserted,  and  maintained 
through  all  manner  of  perils,  has  become  the  heritage  of 
every  unpopular  movement,  of  every  variety  of  reform, 
of  every  shade  of  opinion,  political  or  theological  —  a 
privilege  so  common  that  we  forget  its  novelty,  and  can- 
not believe  what  price  was  paid  for  it.  Those  who  look 
back  to  the  early  days  of  the  Liberator  will  be  convinced 
that  the  harsh  language  so  much  complained  of  was 
never  more  in  place;  the  gag  on  Northern  lips  had  been 
torn  away,  and  to  prove  it  something  more  was  needed 
than  a  whisper. 

Mr.  Garrison's  deeply  religious  nature  being  conceded, 
no  feature  of  his  career  is  more  curious  than  the  disrepute 
into  which  he  fell  among  professing  Christians  of  all  de- 
nominations. His  early  training  had  been  evangelical 
and  sectarian,  his  study  of  the  Scriptures  both  ardent  and 
unremitting,  and  all  his  life  long  he  freely  drew  from  the 
Bible  the  texts  which  supported  his  denunciation  of  the 
sin  of  slavery.  For  some  years  after  he  began  to  edit  his 
paper  he  gave  the  usual  outward  signs  of  being  a  Chris- 
tian in  the  conventional  acceptation  of  the  term.  How 
he  came  to  be  regarded  otherwise  is  easily  explained. 
The  moral  code  imposed  on  the  whole  country  by  slav- 
ery was  upside  down,  and  had  Mr.  Garrison  been  gener- 
ally assisted  in  his  attempts  to  right  it  by  the  clergy  and 
the  churches,  his  character  would  not  have  suffered. 
Since,  however,  they  were  all  interested  in  retaining  the 
code  as  it  was,  in  calling  light  darkness  and  darkness 
light,  they,  equally  with  the  avowed  apologists  of  slav- 
ery —  nay,  still  more,  as  recreant  to  their  professions  — 
merited  his  sternest  censure,  and  they  received  it.  The 
charge  of  infidelity  was  the  natural  retort  of  the  times, 
and  was  attached  to  all  his  associates,  so  that  the  mere 


306    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

joining  of  the  Abolitionists,  without  formal  renunciation 
of  doctrine,  was  deplored  by  sincere  and  humane  church- 
members  as  a  first  step  towards  irreligion,  and  as  a  diver- 
sion from  the  prime  duty  of  saving  one's  soul.  Had  Mr. 
Garrison  adopted  this  view,  it  is  questionable  whether 
he  would  have  saved  a  soul  whose  nobler  instincts  had 
been  smothered,  but  it  may  be  presumed  that  he  would 
have  lived  in  the  odor  of  sanctity;  by  disregarding  it  he 
was  enabled  to  substitute  the  ethics  of  Christianity  for 
those  of  slavery  in  the  allegiance  of  his  countrymen,  and 
to  rescue  from  brutish  promiscuity  and  hand  over  to 
Christian  influences  and  Christian  instruction  four  mil- 
lions of  human  beings,  to  teach  whom  to  read  the  Bible 
had  been  a  felony.  That  in  the  midst  of  such  a  task,  with 
the  end  almost  in  sight,  the  question  (we  believe  in  their 
first  interview)  of  the  friendly  author  of  "Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin,"  "Are  you  a  Christian,  Mr.  Garrison?"  seemed 
almost  quizzical,  is  highly  credible. 

A  judicious  writer  in  the  Evening  Post,  while  observing 
that,  unlike  some  of  his  distinguished  colleagues,  Mr. 
Garrison  can  hardly  be  thought  of  except  as  an  Aboli- 
tionist, leaves  undecided  the  question,  whether  he  would 
have  attained  eminence  otherwise  than  as  a  reformer. 
However  this  may  appear  to  his  future  biographer,  for 
whom  alone  it  will  be  worth  while  to  discuss  it,  there  is 
plenty  of  evidence  that  he  was  not  a  professional  philan- 
thropist. Of  agitation  for  agitation's  sake,  as  a  means  of 
living  or  of  notoriety,  he  was  wholly  innocent.  He  was 
not  only  glad  to  stop,  but  he  knew  when  to  stop;  and 
having  advocated  the  dissolution  of  the  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society  at  the  close  of  the  war,  he  resisted  even 
the  temptation  to  continue  the  Liberator  for  other  ob- 
jects than  the  main  one.  The  welfare  of  the  freedmen, 
however,  continued  to  occupy  his  thoughts,  and  from  the 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  307 

beginning  of  reconstruction  down  almost  to  his  latest 
hour  he  wrote  frequently  for  the  press  on  national  topics, 
and  may  be  said  to  have  died  in  harness.  He  held,  and 
was  in  some  measure  responsible  for,  the  Stalwart  view  of 
the  total  depravity  of  Southerners,  and  his  reliance  upon 
the  general  powers  of  the  Government  to  protect  the 
negro  was  apparently  as  vague  and  unlimited  as  that  of 
any  of  Grant's  adherents.  He  was  a  strict  constructionist 
of  the  ante-bellum  Constitution:  he  always  denied  that 
freedom  was  national  and  slavery  sectional,  because  he 
could  not  juggle  away  the  fugitive  clause,  the  slave-trade 
clause,  and  the  slave-representation  clause;  he  never 
pretended  that  Congress  could  abolish  slavery  in  the 
States,  notwithstanding  the  clause  guaranteeing  a  repub- 
lican form  of  government.  When  freedom  truly  became 
national,  however,  he  did  not  require  chapter  and  verse 
for  authority  to  defend  and  perfect  the  work  begun  by 
Mr.  Lincoln's  proclamation;  nor,  with  Grant's  two  ad- 
ministrations before  him,  did  he  distrust  the  ability  of 
Congress  by  law,  and  the  President  by  force,  to  shield 
the  freedmen  from  harm  and  to  keep  the  governments  at 
the  South  out  of  the  hands  of  the  white  minority.  Mr. 
Hayes's  action  in  South  Carolina  and  Louisiana  seemed 
to  him  a  surrender  of  the  blacks  to  their  oppressors,  in- 
stead of  the  single  performance  of  a  constitutional  duty. 
These  sentiments,  to  the  extent  that  they  were  not 
peculiar  to  himself,  found  favor  with  the  ruling  party, 
and  were  made  use  of  by  the  leading  politicians  to  divert 
attention  from  the  real  issues  of  the  day.  In  this  there 
was  something  retributive,  where  retribution  was  not 
to  be  looked  for.  The  thirty  years'  war  which  Mr.  Gar- 
rison had  waged  with  slavery  had  unfitted  him  for  the 
consideration  of  questions  that  cannot  be  settled  by  a 
simple   appeal   to   elementary   principles   of   right  and 


308    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

wrong;  and  this  led  him  to  take  a  pessimistic  view  of  the 
situation,  the  clews  to  which  were,  so  to  speak,  no  longer 
in  his  hands.  When  the  slave  power  was  everywhere 
dominant,  when  outrage  followed  outrage,  and  mob  fol- 
lowed mob,  through  all  the  weary  years  of  imperceptible 
progress,  in  the  darkest  hours  of  the  rebellion,  his  cheer- 
fulness never  forsook  him;  his  faith  in  God  sustained  his 
spirits  and  comforted  him  with  the  inevitable  overthrow 
of  slavery.  When  the  time  for  statesmanship  came,  and 
the  adaptation  of  means  to  ends  in  the  restoration  of  shat- 
tered social  and  political  fabrics,  the  fear  that  somehow 
this  revolution  might  go  backward  —  a  fear  so  generally 
shared  during  Andrew  Johnson's  administration  —  ap- 
pears to  have  overcome  the  hopeful  temper  of  Mr.  Gar- 
rison. Perhaps  he  found  it  easier  to  lay  aside  the  role  of 
agitator  than  of  prophet.  Certain  it  is  that  he  regarded 
with  suspicion  the  reports  of  white  good  behavior  at  the 
South,  and  accepted  with  a  priori  alacrity  the  tales  of 
violence  and  injustice  which  suited  the  character  of  the 
man-stealers  of  old.  It  cannot  be  said  that  the  South 
was  at  much  pains  to  disabuse  him,  and  his  attitude 
towards  it  was  the  jealousy  of  a  guardian  whose  wards 
have  passed  from  him  into  unfriendly  hands. 

Of  the  personal  qualities  of  Mr.  Garrison,  whether 
public  or  private,  there  is  no  occasion  to  speak  here.  His 
sincerity,  courage,  single-mindedness,  purity,  simplicity, 
modesty,  were  never  called  in  question;  time  will  fix  his 
place  as  a  writer  and  speaker,  and  pass  the  proper  judg- 
ment on  his  methods.  He  has  gone  to  his  rest  at  a  good 
old  age,  with  his  faculties  undimmed,  his  sympathies  as 
tender  as  in  his  youth,  his  conscience  void  of  reproach, 
and  leaving  a  name  which  owed  as  little  to  circumstances 
outside  of  himself  as  that  of  any  self-made  American  of 
any  period  in  our  history. 


AN  ENGLISH  VIEW  OF  AMERICAN  CONSERVATISM 
By  A.  V.  Dicey 


(London  Letter  dated  March  11,  1880) 

A  traveller  in  the  United  States  has  recently  pub- 
lished the  remark  that  "an  English  radical  is  much  struck 
with  the  conservatism  of  the  American  people."  The 
observation  is,  if  properly  understood,  perfectly  just, 
and  represents  the  impression  which  the  United  States 
must  have  made  upon  hundreds  of  Englishmen  who  have 
enjoyed  the  great  advantage  and  the  infinite  pleasure  of 
a  visit  to  the  Union.  Whether  the  impression  is  itself 
well  founded  must  be  left  to  the  judgment  of  yourself 
and  your  readers.  Meanwhile  it  may  be  of  interest  to 
enquire  what  are  the  answers  to  the  three  following 
questions:  First,  What  does  an  Englishman  mean  by 
"conservatism"  as  applied  to  the  American  people? 
Secondly,  What  to  an  English  observer  appear  to  be  the 
causes  in  America  of  this  conservative  temper?  Thirdly, 
What  are  the  inferences  which  the  existence  of  this 
sentiment  throughout  the  greatest  of  modern  republics 
suggests  to  an  English  thinker  with  reference  to  the  char- 
acteristics of  democracy  in  the  future? 

First  —  What  does  an  Englishman  mean  by  conserva- 
tism as  applied  to  the  American  people?  The  term, 
clearly,  as  applied  to  European  politics  is  used  in  at  least 
two  senses,  neither  of  which  is  applicable  to  the  citizens 
of  the  Union.  Conservatism  on  the  Continent,  and  espe- 
cially in  France,  is  nothing  better  than  a  decent  alias  for 
a  policy  of  aggressive  reaction.    A  conservateur  under 


310    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

the  French  Republic  might  seem  named  on  the  principle 
of  lucus  a  non  lucendo.  He  is  a  conservative  who  does 
not  wish  to  preserve  any  part  of  the  existing  constitution. 
He  may  be  loyal  to  Henry  V,  to  the  Orleans  dynasty,  or 
to  Napoleonism.  The  one  thing  he  is  not  loyal  to  is  the 
Republic.  His  first  step  towards  order  is  a  revolution, 
and  he  will  not  begin  to  preserve  anything  till  the  existing 
constitution  of  the  country  is  overthrown.  He  is  that 
strange  birth  of  an  age  of  civil  strife  —  a  reactionary 
revolutionist.  The  conservatism  of  reaction  can  from  the 
very  nature  of  things  hardly  exist  throughout  the  Union. 
Conservatism,  as  applied  to  English  politics,  has  cer- 
tainly no  affinity  with  reaction.  The  wildest  Jingo  who 
worships  Lord  Beaconsfield  does  not  dream  of  overthrow- 
ing the  existing  constitution.  A  politician  who  hinted  at 
the  policy  of  restoring  the  unreformed  Parliament  of 
1830  would  soon  find  himself  committed  to  Bedlam. 
But  the  conservative  sentiment  as  it  exists  in  England, 
though  not  reactionary  or  aggressive,  is  distinctly  de- 
fensive. It  is  the  feeling  of  men  who  not  only  wish  things 
to  be  as  they  are,  but  are  aware  that  things  will  not  long 
remain  as  they  are  unless  those  who  object  to  change 
exert  themselves  to  repel  the  attacks  of  innovators. 
This  feeling,  which  is  not  really  represented  by  the 
vagaries  of  Lord  Beaconsfield,  governs  the  rich  and  re- 
spectable members  of  English  society. 

But  though  at  bottom  a  sentiment  of  this  kind  cannot 
be  wanting  in  any  civilized  and  wealthy  state,  the  defen- 
sive conservatism  of  England  is  not  exactly  what  an 
English  critic  means  when  he  applies  the  term  to  the 
United  States.  It  implies  in  England  not  indeed  aggres- 
sion, but  active  resistance  to  the  progress  of  democratic 
changes.  It  cannot,  in  the  same  form  at  least,  exist  in 
a  country  where  every  democratic  alteration  has  been 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  311 

carried  out,  and  where,  as  it  appears  at  least  to  a  for- 
eigner, there  is  no  party  wishing  to  change,  and  none 
therefore  enlisted  to  defend,  the  established  order  of 
things.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  very  absence  of  the  wish  for 
change,  the  conscious  or  unconscious  preference  for 
things  as  they  are,  the  assumption,  sometimes  well  and 
sometimes  ill-grounded,  that  the  existing  state  of  society 
ought  not  to  be  altered,  which  constitutes  in  the  eyes 
of  observant  Englishmen  the  conservatism  of  America. 
Foreigners,  impressed  with  the  go-ahead  character  of 
Americans,  and  especially  of  American  merchants,  as 
well  as  citizens  of  the  Union  who  know  that  the  American 
people  can  make  any  change  they  choose  in  their  insti- 
tutions, and  who  are  accustomed  to  boast  with  justice  of 
the  freedom  of  their  country,  will  perhaps  be  alike  indis- 
posed to  admit  that  the  term  "conservative"  can,  in  the 
sense  in  which  it  is  here  employed,  be  applied  to  Ameri- 
can society.  There  are,  however,  several  considerations 
which  may  incline  impartial  judges  to  hold  that  the  view 
taken  by  the  traveller  whose  language  has  been  cited  is 
in  substance  correct.  If  one  takes,  for  example,  the 
merely  political  side  of  American  life,  it  surely  must  be 
admitted  that  what  is  really  remarkable  is  that  a  people 
who  have  power  to  change  everything  have,  consciously 
at  least,  not  changed  anything  in  their  institutions  unless 
compelled  to  innovation  (as  in  the  abolition  of  slavery) 
by  the  irresistible  stress  of  circumstances.  Of  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  any  one  who  has  con- 
sidered the  political  uninventiveness  of  mankind  will 
always  speak  with  profound  admiration,  for  it  is  a  work 
marked  in  at  least  two  respects  by  traits  of  undoubted 
originality.  But  the  constitutional  fabric  which  is  the 
glory  of  America  is  the  handiwork  of  a  generation  utterly 
unlike  the  present  and  of  men  who  were  in  some  respects 


312    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

daring  innovators.  Nearly  a  century  has  passed  since 
their  work  was  completed.  Time  has  brought  changes, 
but  no  American  reformers  have,  except  under  something 
like  compulsion,  touched  the  monument  of  their  fore- 
fathers' wisdom.  This  conservatism,  if  it  is  to  be  appre- 
ciated, must  be  compared  not  with  the  reckless  revolu- 
tions of  the  Continent,  but  with  the  unceasing  though 
steady  changes  of  English  politics.  The  alteration  in  the 
English  Constitution  since  the  beginning  of  the  century 
has  been  far  greater  than  the  changes  introduced  during 
the  same  period  into  the  Constitution  of  the  Union. 

Nothing,  again,  impresses  a  stranger  more  than  the 
respect  expressed  and  apparently  felt  throughout  the 
Union  for  the  founders  of  the  Republic.  It  is  like  nothing 
which  now  exists  in  Great  Britain.  It  recalls  the  language 
which  in  the  last  century  Whigs  of  all  schools  applied  to 
the  leaders  of  the  Revolution  of  1688,  or  the  obviously 
genuine  veneration  with  which  Lord  Russell,  who  rep- 
resented the  sentiment  of  a  past  age,  regarded  the  rules 
handed  down  by  Whig  tradition.  The  very  mode  in 
which  the  question  of  General  Grant's  possible  third 
term  is  discussed  strikes  an  Englishman  as  a  singular 
specimen  of  conservative  sentiment.  There  is  much,  as 
no  reader  of  the  Nation  can  fail  to  know,  to  be  said 
against  reelecting  the  General.  There  is  something  on 
general  grounds  to  be  urged  against  Presidential  reelec- 
tions,  though  in  theory  at  least  there  would  appear  to  be 
quite  as  much  to  be  urged  in  their  favor.  The  odd  thing 
to  a  foreigner  is  the  weight  attached  to  mere  precedent. 
Yet  it  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  the  reason  which 
with  the  average  elector  tells  most  strongly  against  the 
gratification  of  General  Grant's  ambition,  is  not  his  un- 
fitness for  the  post  to  which  he  aspires,  not  the  politi- 
cal inexpediency  of  prolonged  personal  rule,  but  the  fact 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  313 

that  Washington  was  only  twice  President.  If  Washing- 
ton had  filled  office  for  three  terms  one  may  suspect  that 
popular  admiration  or  gratitude  would  have  insisted  on 
the  same  honor  being  paid  to  Grant.  In  any  case,  a  main 
obstacle  in  the  General's  path  is  the  existence  of  a  senti- 
ment so  essentially  conservative  as  to  be  unintelligible 
in  a  country  like  France,  and  to  excite  something  like 
wonder  even  in  a  land  so  permeated  by  constitutional 
sentiment  as  Great  Britain. 

If  there  be  anything  more  essentially  characteristic  of  a 
people  than  its  political  institutions,  this  thing  is  its 
law.  Now,  that  the  laws  of  the  States  which  make  up  the 
Union  betray  at  every  turn  the  conservatism  of  the 
American  people,  is  an  assertion  which  I  make  with  con- 
fidence. I  have  professionally  studied  the  law  of  England. 
I  have  given  more  attention  than  perhaps  is  usual  in  the 
case  of  a  foreigner  to  the  laws  and  to  (what  is  even  more 
germane  to  the  present  topic)  the  legal  literature  of 
America.  That  your  law  is  founded  on  that  of  England 
is  common  knowledge.  A  point  not  so  often  noticed  is 
that  the  growth  of  a  republican  society  has  to  a  far 
slighter  extent  than  might  have  been  anticipated  changed 
either  the  substance  or  the  form  of  the  legal  rules  brought 
from  the  old  country.  How  close  your  lawyers  have  kept 
to  the  beaten  track  of  English  law  is  best  seen  in  com- 
parative trifles.  The  fourth  and  seventeenth  sections,  for 
example,  of  the  Statute  of  Frauds  embody  a  rule  which  is 
a  peculiarity  —  one  might  almost  say  an  accidental  pe- 
culiarity —  of  English  law.  As  to  the  policy  of  the  rule 
that  certain  ordinary  contracts  must,  if  they  are  to  be 
valid,  be  in  writing  there  is  very  much  to  be  said.  No  one 
acquainted  with  modern  England  would  be  surprised  were 
the  venerable  sections,  which  have  caused  more  litigation 
than  they  have  hindered,  repealed  in  toto  by  some  Con- 


314    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

servative  Parliament  acting  under  the  advice  of  a  Con- 
servative lord  chancellor.  The  provisions  of  such  a 
statute  might  be  expected  to  be  repealed  or  greatly  modi- 
fied when  carried  across  the  Atlantic;  but  this  is  not  the 
case.  Any  one  who  looks  at  Mr.  Throop's  elaborate 
treatise  will  see  that  the  legislation  of  Charles  II  holds 
its  ground  in  all  or  nearly  all  the  States  of  the  Union. 
The  words  are  in  most  cases  scarcely  altered.  The  letter 
rather  than  the  spirit  has  in  most  instances  been  fol- 
lowed; for  fifty  dollars,  e.g.,  in  the  New  York  Code,  rep- 
resenting the  sum  of  £10,  of  course  does  not  really  rep- 
resent anything  equal  to  the  value  of  that  sum  in  1677. 
An  enquirer  whose  mind  is  once  turned  to  the  subject 
will  see  everywhere  traces  of  the  spirit  which  has  kept 
alive  in  the  midst  of  a  flourishing  republic  even  the 
words  of  legal  rules  which  grew  up  under  an  ancient 
monarchy.  Everywhere  throughout  the  Union  an  Eng- 
lish barrister  recognizes  the  terms  —  occasionally  it  must 
be  added  the  jargon  —  to  which  he  is  accustomed  at 
Westminster  or  Lincoln's  Inn.  If  he  is  puzzled,  it  is 
rather  by  the  antiquity  than  by  the  novelty  of  the  for- 
mulas with  which  he  meets.  At  least  as  late  as  1870  a 
stranger  might  find  in  use  at  Chicago  niceties  of  pleading 
which  had  for  twenty,  or  it  might  be  forty,  years  been 
out  of  use  in  England.  If,  like  myself,  he  asked  for  an 
explanation  of  this  curious  survival,  he  was  told  that  the 
people  had  in  legal  matters  great  confidence  in  the  opinion 
of  established  lawyers.  No  further  explanation  was  neces- 
sary, for  the  sentiment  of  your  bar  strikes  a  foreigner  as 
strangely  conservative  as  compared  even  with  so  steady- 
going  a  body  as  the  bar  of  England.  Of  American  legal 
works  —  such,  for  example,  as  Story's  "Conflict  of 
Laws,"  Mr.  Holmes's  admirable  edition  of  Kent's  "Com- 
mentaries," or  Mr.  Langdell's  "Cases  on  the  Law  of 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  315 

Contract"  —  no  one  who  is  competent  to  judge  can 
speak  without  the  most  unfeigned  admiration.  The 
curious  point  for  the  present  purpose,  however,  is  that 
the  merits  of  modern  American  lawyers  are  in  the  main 
the  merits  which  marked  the  luminaries  of  English  law 
in  the  past  generation  —  extraordinary  knowledge  of 
cases,  astonishing  acuteness  in  working  out  the  princi- 
ples involved  in  recorded  decisions  and  in  applying  them 
to  the  complicated  circumstances  suggested  by  new 
cases  as  they  arise;  and  with  all  this  a  genuine  veneration, 
which  it  may  be  feared  is  gradually  dying  out  in  England, 
for  the  wisdom  and  perfection  of  the  Common  Law.  No 
one  who  has  heard  Professor  D wight's  lectures  or  has 
studied  Mr.  Holmes's  most  interesting  "Speculations" 
can  doubt  that  the  intellect  of  the  American  bar  can  deal 
to  perfection  with  either  the  exposition  of  actual  law  or 
with  the  speculative  problems  of  historical  jurisprudence. 
No  one,  however,  who  compares  England  with  America 
can  fail  to  see  that  the  desire  for  legal  innovation  which 
expresses  itself  in  unceasing  attempts  either  to  reduce 
the  law  to  a  codified  form,  or,  after  the  manner  of  writers 
like  Mr.  Pollock,  to  introduce  into  expositions  of  English 
law  ideas  suggested  by  foreign  writers,  is  far  more  widely 
spread  in  the  old  country  than  in  the  Union.  In  other 
words,  America,  not  England,  is  at  present  the  home  of 
legal  conservatism. 

In  saying  this  I  wish  neither  to  blame  nor  to  praise 
the  one  country  or  the  other.  My  sole  object  is  to  give 
an  example  of  the  existence  of  that  state  of  sentiment 
which,  in  default  of  a  better  term,  may  be  called  conser- 
vatism. The  spirit  which  is  traceable  in  law  and  politics 
comes  out  (though  not,  I  admit,  so  clearly)  in  theology 
and  in  religious  institutions.  This  assertion  will  probably 
be  more  easily  accepted  in  America  than  in  England. 


316    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

Mr.  Hepworth  Dixon  and  better  authorities  than  the 
pretentious  author  of  "Spiritual  Wives"  have  made  cur- 
rent throughout  Europe  the  idea  that  strange  religious 
institutions,  abnormal  forms  of  belief,  and  daring  theo- 
logical speculation  have  their  special  home  in  the  great 
Republic.  This  opinion  is,  of  course,  not  without  its  foun- 
dation. The  mere  existence  of  Mormonism  is,  it  will  be 
said,  sufficient  proof  that  the  opinion  is  well  grounded. 
Yet  this  current  notion,  even  though  not  causeless,  is, 
I  venture  to  think,  in  so  far  as  a  foreigner  is  capable 
of  pronouncing  judgment  on  a  matter  requiring  more 
knowledge  of  facts  than  he  can  easily  acquire,  really  cal- 
culated to  mislead.  The  current  tone  of  American  religion 
appears  to  be  for  all  practical  purposes  uncommonly  like 
the  tone  which  prevails  in  England.  Where  men  may 
say  anything  they  please  without  exposing  themselves  to 
legal  or  social  loss,  strange  things  will  of  course  occasion- 
ally be  thought  and  said;  but  any  one  who  notes  the 
number  of  churches,  say,  in  Chicago  or  New  York,  will 
not  readily  believe  that  there  has  been  any  great  wave 
of  opinion  drawing  off  American  citizens  from  the  reli- 
gious habits  prevalent  in  England,  whilst  any  one  who 
steps  inside  these  churches  will  probably  feel  that  he 
hears  for  good  and  bad  much  the  same  doctrine  he  would 
hear  in  London  or  Manchester.  No  doubt  institutions 
such  as  the  Oneida  Community  well  merit  attention. 
The  same  thing  may  be  said  of  Mr.  Bradlaugh's  lectures, 
or  of  the  Positivist  church  in  London,  which  certainly 
has  not  an  overflowing  audience.  But  to  suppose  that 
the  Oneida  Community  is  a  fair  representative  of  average 
society  in  America  is,  I  conceive,  much  like  thinking 
that  Mr.  Bradlaugh's  audience  represents  the  ordinary 
theological  tone  of  average  Englishmen.  Mormonism, 
no  doubt,  is  a  remarkable  phenomenon.    It  shows  that 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  317 

noteworthy  institutions  which  could  hardly  make  way  in 
an  ordinary  European  state  may  arise  and  flourish  in  a 
country  where  the  ground  is  both  literally  and  meta- 
phorically open  for  them.  But  Mormonism  is  exactly 
one  of  those  exceptions  which  prove  the  rule.  In  one 
respect  it  is  marked  by  a  singular  want  of  originality. 
It  is  grounded  on  a  sort  of  vulgar  biblicalism.  It  is,  one 
may  add,  though  of  American  origin,  yet  supported  by 
foreigners,  and  may  in  all  probability  sink  in  the  course 
of  a  generation  or  two  into  the  same  sort  of  position  as 
that  now  occupied  by  many  sects,  both  in  England  and 
America,  which  at  their  first  birth  seemed  filled  with  the 
spirit  of  innovation,  but  which  as  time  went  on  sobered 
down  into  bodies  mainly  remarkable  by  their  tenacious 
adherence  to  some  few  principles,  crotchets,  or  oddities 
inherited  from  their  founders.  There  is  no  need,  however, 
for  pressing  my  point  too  hard.  Let  Mormonism  be  taken 
for  what  it  is  worth  as  an  example  of  religious  innova- 
tion or  adventure;  to  an  Englishman,  certainly,  the  large 
fact  about  American  society  may  rationally  seem  to  be 
that  in  politics,  in  law,  and  in  religion,  its  pervading  tone 
is,  compared  at  least  with  England,  a  sentiment  of  con- 
servatism. 

In  one  other  letter  I  purpose  to  point  out  what  may 
seem  to  be  the  cause  of  the  fact  I  have  noted,  and  what 
are  some  of  the  inferences  which  this  fact  suggests. 

II 

(London  Letter  dated  April  1,  1880) 

With  your  permission  I  will  now  examine  the  reply  to 
the  second  and  third  questions  which  in  my  former  letter 
I  left  unanswered. 

What,  in  the  second  place,  would  appear  to  an  English 


318    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

observer  to  be  the  causes  of  what  I  have  termed  the  con- 
servative temper  of  America? 

The  reply  hardly  admits  of  doubt.  Society  in  America 
is  conservative  because  throughout  the  Northern  States 
(to  which  alone  I  venture  to  refer)  there  is  a  noticeable 
absence  of  the  conditions  which  in  other  countries  evoke 
the  desire  for  innovation.  These  conditions  are  material 
want  or  discomfort  among  the  mass  of  the  people,  and 
the  existence  of  a  large  body  of  persons  given  to  specu- 
lative pursuits  and  irritated  by  the  social  or  political  cir- 
cumstances by  which  they  are  surrounded.  In  a  country 
where  there  is,  as  compared  with  Europe,  a  wide  diffusion 
of  material  comfort;  where,  though  many  men  are  par- 
tially educated,  few  persons  devote  their  whole  minds  to 
theoretical  interests ;  where  the  arrangements  of  the  state 
in  the  main  correspond  with  the  habits  of  the  people,  and 
where  (perhaps  it  may  be  added)  the  absence  of  all  oppo- 
sition to  the  popular  will  slightly  deadens  even  the  pas- 
sion for  freedom,  you  may  be  certain  —  at  any  rate  if 
the  members  of  such  a  community  belong  to  the  English 
race  —  to  find  that  predominant  disposition  to  leave 
things  as  they  are  which,  under  all  the  apparent  restless- 
ness of  American  life,  seems  to  a  foreign  critic  to  consti- 
tute the  fundamental  political  tone  of  the  American 
people. 

What  (to  deal  with  my  third  and  last  question)  are  the 
inferences  which  the  existence  of  American  conservatism 
suggests  to  an  English  observer? 

The  first  and  to  European  statesmen  by  far  the  most 
important  is  that  there  is  no  connection,  except  one  of 
historical  association,  between  democratic  government 
and  revolutionary  habits.  Observation  of  America  sug- 
gests that  the  great  French  Revolution  has  produced  at 
least  as  much  confusion  in  the  world  of  political  specula- 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  319 

tion  as  in  the  world  of  political  action.  In  England,  and 
still  more  on  the  Continent,  men  are  still  unconsciously 
confused  by  the  memories  of  the  Reign  of  Terror.  Re- 
publicanism shook,  or  appeared  to  shake,  the  very  foun- 
dations of  society;  and  because  the  attempt  to  establish 
Democratic  institutions  produced  revolution,  calm  ob- 
servers find  it  difficult  even  now  to  believe  that  a  republic 
when  established  has  not  necessarily  a  close  connection 
with  what  is  called  the  revolutionary  spirit,  or,  in  other 
words,  with  the  constant  craving  for  change.  English- 
men, indeed,  are  beginning  to  perceive  that  the  lessons 
of  the  French  Revolution  have,  though  naturally  enough, 
been  grossly  misinterpreted.  A  fair  analysis  of  the  prin- 
ciples which  have  governed  France  since  1789  shows  that 
the  majority  of  the  French  people  have,  from  the  moment 
that  their  urgent  wants  were  satisfied,  been  the  victims 
rather  of  selfish  conservatism  than  of  the  excessive  love 
for  innovation;  whilst  thirty  years'  experience  of  the 
Swiss  democracy  should  convince  us  of  the  futility  of 
the  dogma  that  freedom  is  inconsistent  with  order. 

The  Conservatives,  however,  of  the  Continent  still 
dread  the  very  name  of  a  republic.  Frenchmen,  espe- 
cially such  as  the  Due  de  Broglie,  are  haunted  by 
the  spectre  of  1791.  They  may  play  with  the  popular 
dread  of  revolutionary  violence,  but  no  one  can  doubt 
that  they  are  also  the  dupes  of  their  own  panic.  No 
exorcism  is  so  potent  to  lay  the  spirit  of  unreasoning 
fear  as  a  study  of  the  United  States  as  they  actually 
exist.  No  one  who  uses  his  eyes  and  looks  facts  in  the 
face  can  doubt  that  in  x\merica,  at  least,  popular  govern- 
ment has  no  more  necessary  connection  with  the  revo- 
lutionary spirit  than  in  England  monarchical  govern- 
ment has  with  despotism.  Indeed,  the  tendency  of  any 
one  who  reflects  on  the  condition  of  your  country  will,  it 


320    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

may  be  suspected,  be  to  revert  to  a  train  of  thought 
familiar  to  the  thinkers  of  the  eighteenth  century,  before 
their  intellectual  calm  was  disturbed  by  the  shouts  of 
the  Paris  mob  and  by  the  sight  of  the  guillotine. 

"Nothing,"  writes  Hume,  "  is  more  surprising  to  those 
who  consider  human  nature  with  a  philosophical  eye 
than  to  see  the  easiness  with  which  the  many  are  gov- 
erned by  the  few,  and  to  observe  the  implicit  submission 
with  which  men  resign  their  own  sentiments  and  passions 
to  those  of  their  rulers."  "When  popular  discontents," 
writes  Burke  in  a  celebrated  passage,  "have  been  very 
prevalent,  it  may  well  be  affirmed  and  supported  that 
there  has  been  generally  something  found  amiss  in  the 
constitution  or  in  the  conduct  of  the  government.  The 
people  have  no  interest  in  disorder;  when  they  do  wrong 
it  is  their  error  and  not  their  crime  —  '  Pour  la  populace, 
ce  n'est  jamais  par  envie  d'attaquer  qu'elle  se  souleve, 
mais  par  impatience  de  souffrir."  These  sentiments 
appear,  indeed,  somewhat  out  of  date,  and  to  belong  to 
an  age  unlike  our  own.  They  are  in  truth,  however, 
specially  applicable  to  modern  times,  when  experience 
no  less  than  theory  really  proves  that  it  is  with  people 
as  with  children :  what  they  are  allowed  to  do  they  often 
do  not  care  to  do  at  all;  and  a  democracy  with  uncon- 
trolled power  to  change  everything  is  constantly  found 
indisposed  to  alter  anything. 

The  second  inference  which  American  conservatism, 
combined  with  a  survey  of  the  history  of  the  United 
States,  suggests  to  an  impartial  observer  is  closely  allied 
to  the  conclusion  that  republicanism  has  no  special  con- 
nection with  a  love  of  change,  but  will  hardly  meet  with 
ready  acquiescence  from  your  readers.  This  inference 
is  that  bond-fide  popular  government,  the  existence  of  as 
wide  individual  freedom  as  is  compatible  with  the  main- 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  321 

tenance  of  law,  complete  legal  and  nearly  complete 
social  toleration  both  of  free  discussion  and  of  differences 
of  opinion,  are  not  in  themselves  conditions  which  insure 
either  general  activity  of  intellectual  speculation  or  a 
general  interest  in  the  promotion  of  original  thought.  All 
these  conditions  are  fulfilled  in  the  Union  as  it  now  ex- 
ists. Can,  however,  any  honest  critic  assert  that  Amer- 
ican society  is  the  home  of  extraordinary  intellectual 
energy?  No  doubt  more  people  are  with  you  intelli- 
gently interested  in  what  may  be  roughly  termed  intel- 
lectual matters  than  in  any  other  country  throughout 
the  world.  To  put  the  matter  simply,  a  greater  propor- 
tion of  your  citizens  are,  I  take  it,  intelligent  readers 
than  can  be  found  in  an  European  nation ;  but  as  far  as 
a  foreigner  can  judge  from  the  obvious  facts  of  the  case, 
your  educated  classes  follow  in  the  main  the  lines  pursued 
by  the  same  classes  in  England,  and  are  somewhat  less 
agitated  than  Englishmen  by  the  moral,  social,  or  reli- 
gious problems  of  the  day.  Scarcely  any  one  will  contend 
that  you  will  find  either  in  America  or,  indeed,  in  England 
the  same  speculative  enthusiasm  as  was  to  be  seen  in 
France  towards  the  close  of  the  ancien  regime,  or,  to 
take  another  example,  anything  like  the  burst  of  specu- 
lative and  imaginative  energy  which  prevailed  in  the 
little  principalities  of  Germany  at  the  beginning  of  the 
present  century.  Let  us  take  another  basis  of  comparison, 
and  contrast  the  United  States  of  to-day  with  American 
society  of  a  century  back.  Washington,  Franklin,  and 
Hamilton,  and  the  body  of  men  who,  born  as  British 
subjects,  created  the  Union,  have  probably  like  other 
heroes  gained  something  from  distance,  and  have  gained 
even  more  from  the  fact  that  their  activity  was  displayed 
on  a  stage  which  attracted  the  eyes  of  the  world;  still, 
the  fact  remains  that  these  men,  bred  in  a  colonial  prov- 


322    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

ince  and  under  influences  far  less  democratic  than  the 
institutions  of  modern  America,  are  to  this  day  the  he- 
roes of  the  Republic.  Do  not  suppose  that  I  in  the 
least  wish  to  hint  at  any  exceptional  decline  in  the  intel- 
lectual power  of  America.  Fluctuations  in  the  capacity 
for  developing  genius  are  noticeable  in  all  societies. 
There  is  nothing  in  England  to  compare  with  the  group 
of  celebrities  who,  to  use  a  convenient  Gallicism,  "  illus- 
trated" the  age  of  Scott,  of  Wordsworth,  of  Brougham, 
of  Sydney  Smith,  and  of  Bentham.  Modern  France  does 
not  display  the  brilliancy  of  intellect  which  shone  forth 
in  the  time  of  Voltaire,  Diderot,  and  Rousseau.  The 
Germany  of  Moltke  and  Bismarck  does  not  compare 
very  favorably  with  the  Germany  of  Goethe,  of  Schiller, 
of  Niebuhr,  and  of  Stein.  My  aim  is  not  to  show  that 
American  society  exhibits  any  special  deficiency  in  men- 
tal power,  but  simply  to  point  to  the  conclusion  that 
republican  freedom  is  not  a  security  for  intellectual 
activity. 

The  idea  that  liberty  must  of  itself  stimulate  specula- 
lative  energy,  or,  in  other  words,  necessarily  produce  a 
spirit  of  active  enquiry  and  of  theoretical  innovation,  is 
natural  enough.  There  is  a  real  connection  between  in- 
dividual liberty  and  freedom  of  thought,  for  the  rule  of 
liberty  takes  away  the  deadening  influence  of  persecution. 
To  this  it  may  be  added  that  as  long  as  the  free  expres- 
sion of  opinion  is  the  privilege  of  but  very  few  countries, 
the  states  which  enjoy  this  privilege  will  attract  to  them 
bold  thinkers  who  cannot  otherwise  find  room  for  their 
energies.  Hence  in  the  last  century  Holland,  England, 
and  Geneva  shone  with  intellectual  glories  not  properly 
their  own.  It  was,  therefore,  all  but  inevitable  that  men 
who  knew  by  experience  that  persecution  might  be  strong 
enough  to  destroy  the  very  springs  of  speculative  power, 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  323 

and  who  saw  that  free  states  were  the  homes  of  intel- 
lectual innovators,  should  conclude  that  there  was  a 
closer  connection  than  in  fact  exists  between  political 
liberty  and  speculative  activity.  The  extended  experi- 
ence of  mankind  has  now  taught  us  that  persecution 
itself  is,  though  when  carried  beyond  a  certain  limit 
fatal  to  free  thought,  by  no  means  its  only  enemy. 
Human  indolence  is,  after  all,  the  deadliest,  because  the 
most  permanent,  foe  to  intellectual  achievements.  We 
may,  perhaps,  even  maintain  that  ineffective  persecu- 
tion —  that  is,  persecution  which  irritates  without  de- 
stroying those  upon  whom  it  falls  —  is  favorable  to  the 
promotion  of  speculative  energy.  Forbidden  fruit  has  a 
peculiar  charm  just  because  it  is  forbidden.  When  this 
charm  is  removed  it  is  often  found  that  few  persons  care 
to  climb  high  in  search  of  the  out-of-the-way  fruits  of  the 
tree  of  knowledge.  To  say  that  moderate  persecution 
occasionally  produces  some  slight  benefit  by  the  reaction 
which  it  causes  in  its  victims  against  the  doctrines  en- 
forced by  their  persecutors,  is  not  to  tender  an  apology 
for  intolerance.  There  are  other  things  quite  as  important 
to  mankind  as  the  existence  of  vehement  intellectual 
activity.  To  say  that  Voltaire  or  Diderot  would  not  have 
displayed  the  whole  of  his  powers  in  any  society  more 
tolerant  than  that  in  which  he  lived,  is  quite  consistent 
with  the  belief  that  the  intellectual  and  moral  vices  of  the 
Regency  were  a  dear  price  to  pay  for  the  rapid  and  rather 
hasty  growth  of  the  spirit  of  enlightenment.  But,  how- 
ever this  may  be,  the  fact  that  unlimited  freedom,  while 
leaving  room  for  speculation,  does  not  in  itself  stimulate 
men's  intellectual  activity,  is  worth  notice.  As  one  con- 
templates (neither  for  praise  nor  blame  but  simply  with 
a  view  to  fair  criticism)  the  marked  conservatism  of 
America,  one  is  forced,  or  at  least  led,  to  the  conclusion 


324    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

that  the  democracy  of  the  future,  as  it  will  not  justify 
the  fears  of  reactionists,  will  also  somewhat  disappoint 
the  sanguine  expectations  of  democratic  enthusiasts. 
Freedom  will,  like  wisdom,  be  justified  of  her  children. 
She  will,  we  may  suspect,  produce  throughout  the  civi- 
lized world  orderly,  law-respecting,  conservative  societies, 
which  will  ensure  progress,  but  will  also  take  good  care 
that  mankind  does  not  advance  at  too  rapid  a  pace  or 
dash  recklessly  into  unknown  paths. 


THE  "(EDIPUS  TYRANNUS"  AT  HARVARD 

By  B.  L.  Gildersleeve 

(May  19,  1881) 

For  the  hundreds  who  were  present  at  the  Sanders 
Theatre  on  Tuesday  night,  or  who  will  witness  the  sub- 
sequent performances  of  the  "GEdipus  Tyrannus"  at 
Harvard,  there  are  thousands  of  the  readers  of  the  Nation 
who  have  followed  the  undertaking  in  thought,  and  it  is 
for  these  lovers  of  classical  study  that  I  write.  Not  that 
I  intend  to  go  into  an  analysis  of  the  play  itself,  for  if 
any  work  of  tragic  art  has  been  carefully  studied  it  is 
the  "CEdipus,"  and  it  would  seem  almost  impossible  to 
indicate  one  novel  point  in  plot,  in  dialogue,  or  in  chorus. 
Nor  shall  I  consider  here  the  conditions  of  the  perform- 
ance, although  such  a  study  might  have  some  interest  as 
an  independent  attempt  to  solve  the  problem  of  setting 
the  antique  "CEdipus"  on  the  modern  stage,  but  it 
would  be  more  modest,  and  certainly  far  less  dangerous, 
to  learn  the  limits  of  the  undertaking  from  the  accom- 
plished scholars  who  have  had  the  matter  in  hand  than 
to  frame  a  speculative  scheme  on  the  possible.  What  I 
desire  to  say  now,  in  connection  with  this  enterprise,  has 
a  wider  scope.  The  project  itself  is  a  matter  of  so  much 
interest  to  all  students  of  classical  antiquity  that  even 
those  who  are  slow  to  emerge  from  the  still  air  of  the 
teacher's  life  can  hardly  resist  the  temptation  to  tell  a 
larger  public  why  the  Harvard  play,  which  is  an  inci- 
dent to  so  many,  is  an  event  to  us,  the  issue  of  a  long 
preparation  and  the  promise  of  a  better  future;  and  I 
hope  I  shall  be  pardoned  for  taking  the  "CEdipus  Tyran- 
nus" as  an  illustration  of  the  advance  which  has  been 


326    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

made  in  America  within  the  last  thirty  or  thirty-five 
years  in  studies  which  are  classed  by  some  ignorant  or 
narrow  people  as  non-progressive.  Though  a  pessimist 
in  all  else,  a  man  cannot  be  a  pessimist  in  his  calling, 
unless  that  calling  be  pessimism  itself,  and  then  it  is  a 
trade  and  not  a  calling.  So,  whatever  else  I  may  have 
despaired  of,  I  have  never  despaired  of  the  permanency 
of  the  ancient  classics  as  an  integral  part  of  our  civiliza- 
tion, and  I  think  that  Mr.  Carlyle's  testamentary  pro- 
vision as  to  the  lapse  of  his  classical  bursaries  was  need- 
less. Is  there  a  decline  in  this  country?  The  answer  de- 
pends on  the  point  of  view.  Less  Latin  may  be  quoted  — 
quotation  as  a  fine  art  is  dead  even  in  England ;  there  are 
fewer  allusions  to  mythology;  our  politicians  do  not 
stuff  their  speeches  with  Greek  and  Roman  worthies; 
but  there  is  a  far  better  appreciation  of  Latin  and  Greek 
than  there  ever  was  before.  People  do  not  study  Latin 
now  because  it  is  the  source  of  "all  the  elegant  expressions 
in  English,"  as  the  young  Princess  Victoria  did,  nor 
Greek  chiefly  to  read  the  New  Testament  in  the  original ; 
and  despite  the  tendency  to  make  a  classic  author  a 
stalking-horse  for  bringing  down  tough  etymologies  and 
netting  queer  constructions,  there  is  a  much  closer  study 
and  a  much  truer  appreciation  of  the  literary  art  of  an- 
tiquity now  than  at  the  time  to  which  I  refer;  and  this 
is  shown  signally  by  the  very  drama  which  everybody 
is  talking  of  to-day. 

Signally  by  the  "(Edipus,"  because  the  "(Edipus" 
was  and  still  is  for  the  majority  of  college-bred  men  the 
play  by  which  Sophocles  is  chiefly,  if  not  solely,  known. 
Of  late  years  the  repertory  has  been  enlarged.  The  triad 
of  "Prometheus,"  "(Edipus,"  and  "Medea,"  by  which 
iEschylus,  Sophocles,  and  Euripides  were  once  regularly 
represented,  is  not  so  stable  as  it  was;  and  yet  the  state- 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  327 

ment  will  hold  good.  Why  this  prominence  of  the 
"(Edipus"?  The  fame  of  the  piece  in  antiquity?  The 
dictum  of  Aristotle?  Certainly  not  the  theme,  unless  we 
can  see  in  the  articulation  of  the  play  a  certain  affinity 
to  the  grimness  of  the  American  temper,  which  delights  in 
the  mechanical  evolution  of  mischief.  One  should  think 
that  the  "Antigone,"  the  "Ajax,"  would  be  better 
adapted  to  the  youthful  mind  than  this  dread  tale  of 
involuntary  parricide  and  unconscious  incest,  this  fearful 
self-immeshing  of  an  heroic  nature  in  the  toils  of  doom. 
There  is  no  chorus  in  the  "(Edipus"  that  appeals  to  the 
young  heart  like  the  Eros  chorus  in  the  "Antigone,"  and 
boys  hold  their  breath  as  they  read  the  last  words  of 
Ajax.  But  in  the  divorce  of  scholastic  training  from  real 
life  the  theme  made  very  little  difference  to  our  fathers. 
I  have  recently  read  that,  in  a  certain  French  Lycee, 
Petronius,  or  some  similar  classical  impropriety,  used  to 
be  a  prize  book.  For  that  matter,  the  second  Eclogue  of 
Vergil  is  still  read  in  schools.  But  it  is  not  only  the  unre- 
ality of  the  method  of  study  that  neutralizes  any  bad 
effect:  true  poetry  purifies  of  itself.  It  is  only  when  we 
attempt  to  interpret  these  things  to  others  that  we  feel 
the  difference  of  the  modern  atmosphere.  Last  summer  I 
was  in  the  Gaiety  Theatre  waiting  for  the  curtain  to  rise 
on  Sarah  Bernhardt's  Phedre,  when  a  man  took  a  seat  by 
my  side  and  asked  me  if  I  would  have  the  kindness  to  give 
him  an  outline  of  the  play;  he  knew  no  French,  had  no 
notion  what  it  was  all  about,  and  wanted  some  clue  to 
guide  him  in  his  admiration  of  the  great  actress.  Often  as 
I  had  read  the  "Hippolytus"  and  the  "Phedre,"  I  felt 
for  the  first  time  the  difficulty  of  putting  the  matter  in 
such  a  form  as  not  to  shock  myself  by  the  crudeness  of  it. 
So  the  prose  story  of  (Edipus  is  not  easy  to  tell.  It  does 
not  fit  into  a  "  Wonder-book  for  Boys  and  Girls."  But  the 


328    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

play  still  holds  its  own  in  instruction.  It  has  always  been 
a  favorite  despite  the  theme,  and  it  was  this  popularity 
that  gave  it  a  place  in  the  "Grseca  Maiora,"  which  was 
the  advanced  reading-book  in  most  American  colleges  for 
nearly  half  a  century.  I  have  the  copy  used  in  my  college 
days  before  me  now  as  I  write.  It  is  the  fourth  American 
edition  (Boston:  Hilliard,  Gray  &  Co.,  1839).  Such  a 
book  could  not  get  itself  printed  in  America  now.  Shall 
I  say  because  it  is  too  learned?  It  is  certainly  a  strange 
contrast  both  in  cumbrousness  and  in  crudeness  to  what 
is  current  to-day.  The  commentary  is  not  bad  reading  to 
any  one  who  has  an  interest  in  the  development  of  study. 
It  is  so  much  behind  the  time  in  which  this  edition  was 
printed  that  it  seems  incredible  that  the  book  should 
have  held  its  ground  into  the  second  half  of  the  century. 
I  have  a  certain  affection  for  it;  the  selections  are  fair,  and 
it  is  pleasant  to  read  the  compliments  to  Porson,  the 
reflections  on  Brunck's  audacity,  and  the  cautious  refer- 
ences to  that  flagitious  innovator  Boeckli.  But  just  now 
I  am  interested  in  trying  to  represent  to  myself  what 
image  of  the  "(Edipus  Tyrannus"  was  possible  to  any 
youth  whose  chief  reliance  was  on  such  a  textbook. 
There  is  no  attempt  to  develop  the  plot,  none  to  give  any 
notion  of  the  Greek  tragic  art.  This  was  supposed  to  be 
the  duty  of  the  praceptor  diligens,  who  is  first  to  learn 
all  about  it  from  Aristotle's  "Poetic,"  Mason's  "Elfrida 
and  Caractacus,"  Brumoy's  "Theatre  des  Grecs"  and 
the  "Voyage  du  jeune  Anacharsis,"  and  then  to  impart 
his  knowledge  "w  voce  to  his  disciples."  Instruction  in 
the  metres  is  limited  to  the  iambic,  trochaic,  and  ana- 
paestic verses.  The  choral  rhythms  are  judiciously 
passed  by.  The  knotty  passages  are  explained  fairly 
enough,  all  things  considered;  but  what  was  the  total 
effect?    I  verily  believe  that  those  of  us  who  had  any 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  329 

knack  at  verse  would  have  thought  it  no  profanation  to 
turn  the  dialogue  into  rhymed  decasyllabics.  Impossible ! 
what  is  impossible?  The  feat  was  performed  only  last 
year  in  Ohio.  As  for  the  choruses,  they  were  considered 
wilful  puzzles,  to  which  the  Oxford  translation,  which 
circulated  surreptitiously,  gave  a  very  uncertain  clue.  A 
"widower  bull"  and  an  "enigmatical  bitch"  —  the  latter 
unconventional  turn  being  delicately  relegated  to  a  foot- 
note —  were  the  most  vivid  figures  in  the  phantasmagory 
that  did  duty  for  the  true  "(Edipus."  Of  course  most  of 
us  felt  that  there  must  be  poetry  there,  but  the  admira- 
tion was  induced. 

My  contemporaries  may  have  been  more  fortunate 
than  I  was,  but  I  think  that  I  represented  the  average  lad 
of  the  average  American  college  in  the  fifth  decade  of  the 
century.  The  change  that  has  come  over  our  classical 
study  since  that  time  is  due  to  German  influence  and 
German  training,  which  were  then  but  feebly  felt  except 
at  the  great  centres;  and  this  is  a  debt  which  we  must  not 
forget  even  now,  when  it  is  our  right  and  our  duty  to 
assert  a  certain  independence  of  judgment,  and  dare  to 
think  for  ourselves  and  investigate  for  ourselves. 

Sophocles  is  the  favorite  of  the  Germans,  and  it  is  pos- 
sible that  they  have  loved  him  too  minutely.  A  subtle 
plot  like  that  of  the  "(Edipus"  may  be  dissected  into  fila- 
ments so  fine  that  the  threads  will  cease  to  hold.  The 
tragic  irony  may  be  so  magnified  by  the  microphone  of 
"sympathetic"  criticism  that  the  whole  play  will  be  a 
concert  of  diabolical  fleers  and  flouts.  But  the  deeper  the 
study  of  Hellenic  art,  the  stronger  the  conviction  that 
the  whole  organism  is  permeated  by  thought  transmuted 
into  feeling;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  closer  the  obser- 
vation of  the  actual  human  life,  the  surer  the  certainty 
that  the  poet's  vision  and  the  world  of  fact  are,  after  all, 


330    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

one.  However,  the  gain  of  classical  studies  in  America 
has  not  been  in  this  direction  only.  Our  progress  has 
been  great  in  the  appreciation  of  form.  I  am  not  going 
to  enter  upon  the  subject  of  pronunciation,  though  I 
consider  the  ejection  of  the  English  sounds  a  great  gain; 
but  there  are  other  points  in  which  the  progress  is  less 
open  to  cavil.  The  very  words  of  the  Greek  language, 
thanks  to  the  advance  of  etymological  study,  glow  and 
glitter  as  they  never  did  in  the  olden  time,  and  the 
Greek  chorals  sing  themselves  to  us  with  a  music  which 
had  been  asleep  for  centuries.  We  cannot  reproduce 
every  detail,  but  we  know  enough  to  discern  the  prin- 
ciples of  a  noble  harmony.  The  choruses  are  no  longer 
straggling  centipedes,  with  every  foot  different  and  no 
forward  motion  in  any,  but  rhythmic  pulses  changing 
their  beat  with  the  shifting  tides  of  passion.  Nay,  even 
the  dialogue  masses  and  deploys  itself  —  not  in  mechani- 
cal puppetry,  yet  not  without  law.  In  the  architecture  of 
the  drama  as  a  whole  it  is,  of  course,  possible  to  carry  the 
study  of  proportion  into  absurd  detail;  but,  as  it  is  hard 
to  overestimate  the  subtlety  of  the  Greek  sense,  we  do 
not  go  far  wrong  in  the  processes  by  which  we  unfold  the 
implication  of  their  works  of  art.  We  are  only  giving 
mathematical  expression  to  an  instinctive  jet.  How  much 
of  this  advance  has  made  itself  felt  in  the  performance  of 
the  "(Edipus  Tyrannus"  at  Harvard  is  known  by  this 
time.  Something  more  is  expected  than  the  vivid  rep- 
resentation of  the  tragic  power  of  the  play.  That 
power  could  not  fail  of  manifestation  by  coarser  means. 
Whether  the  rarer  and  subtler  elements  can  be  fixed  by 
the  actualization  of  the  stage  is  the  difficult  problem. 
At  any  rate,  the  experiment  could  not  have  been  in  better 
hands. 


RESPONSIBLE  GOVERNMENT  IN  GERMANY 

By  Carl  Schurz 
(November  24,  1881) 

The  radical  difference  between  the  constitutional  sys- 
tem of  Germany  and  that  of  England  could  scarcely  have 
been  put  in  a  stronger  light  than  by  the  Emperor's  speech 
at  the  opening  of  the  Reichstag,  and  the  construction 
given  to  that  speech  by  the  official  press.  The  North- 
German  Gazette,  known  as  Prince  Bismarck's  organ,  an- 
nounces the  measures  recommended  in  the  speech  from 
the  throne  —  the  tobacco  monopoly,  the  workingmen's 
insurance  by  the  state,  the  biennial  budget,  etc.  —  as 
"the  Emperor's  programme,"  whereupon  the  Liberal 
press  unanimously  express  regret  "that  the  august  per- 
son of  the  sovereign  has  thus  been  put  forward  in  op- 
position to  a  majority  of  the  nation  in  favor  of  Socialist 
and  political  projects  for  which  Prince  Bismarck  ought 
himself  to  assume  sole  responsibility."  An  attempt  to 
protect  a  Minister  by  shifting  the  responsibility  for  his 
measures  upon  the  sovereign  would  be  looked  upon  in 
England  as  a  violation  of  the  most  fundamental  principles 
of  the  Constitution.  The  Liberal  press  in  Germany  evi- 
dently seeks  to  put  its  disapproval  of  the  Emperor's  and 
the  Chancellor's  assumed  relations  on  the  same  ground. 
It  would  be  right  in  doing  so  if  in  Germany  the  same 
system  of  ministerial  responsibility  existed.  But  it  does 
not.  While  in  England  the  Ministers  of  the  Crown  are 
held  responsible  to  Parliament,  being  subject  to  a  vote  of 
the  Parliamentary  majority,  under  the  Constitution  of 
the  German  Empire  the  Chancellor  is  responsible  only 
to  the  Emperor,  no  matter  whether  the  majority  of  the 


332    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

Reichstag  be  for  or  against  him.  In  this  respect  the 
German  system  bears  a  certain  resemblance  to  that  of 
the  United  States,  where  the  Ministers  are  not,  as  to 
their  measures,  subject  to  a  majority  of  Congress,  except 
in  cases  of  impeachment  —  with  this  fundamental  differ- 
ence, however,  that  the  heads  of  the  executive  depart- 
ments are  in  the  first  place  responsible  to  the  President, 
while  the  President  is  responsible  for  the  conduct  of  the 
executive  branch  of  the  Government  generally,  holding 
his  office  only  for  a  stated  term,  and  also  subject  to  im- 
peachment, which  the  Emperor  of  Germany  is  not.  And 
as  the  Emperor  is  responsible  to  nobody,  no  system  of 
personal  responsibility  really  exists  under  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  Empire.  It  is  clear,  however,  that  under  such 
circumstances  the  Emperor,  like  our  President,  may  do 
what  the  Queen  of  England  cannot  do :  announce  certain 
measures  of  policy  as  his  own  personal  programme  with- 
out violating  any  principle  of  the  German  Constitution. 
While  for  this  reason  it  would  be  wrong  to  condemn 
the  attitude  in  which  the  Emperor  has  been  placed,  on  the 
ground  of  the  Constitution  as  it  is,  the  German  Liberals 
are  clearly  right,  in  view  of  what  the  Constitution  ought 
to  be,  in  saying  that  the  responsibility  for  the  declara- 
tions of  the  Emperor's  speech  should  be  assumed  by  the 
Minister  who  originated  the  measures  which  that  speech 
recommends.  It  is  not  at  all  improbable  that  this  occur- 
rence, which  has  put  the  irresponsible  character  of  the 
Imperial  Government  in  so  glaring  a  light,  will  serve  to 
make  the  question  of  the  constitutional  responsibility  of 
Ministers  again  the  subject  of  debate  and  agitation.  We 
do  not  mean  to  say  that  such  an  agitation  would  be 
likely  to  lead  to  immediate  results.  It  is,  indeed,  apparent 
that  when  Prince  Bismarck  feels  himself  obliged  to  seek 
support  for  his  measures  by  entrenching  them  behind  the 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  333 

venerable  figure  and  the  popularity  of  the  Emperor,  he 
must  think  his  own  popularity  and  power  over  public 
opinion  no  longer  strong  enough  to  secure  their  success. 
Nor  is  it  likely  that  by  such  a  manoeuvre  the  popular 
or  Parliamentary  opposition  to  the  Chancellor's  measures 
will  be  overcome.  The  same  trick  was  tried  during  the 
campaign  which  preceded  the  elections,  when  the  people 
were  told  every  day  by  the  organs  of  the  Government  in 
the  press  and  on  the  hustings  that  every  vote  against 
the  Conservative  candidates  would  be  a  vote  against  the 
Emperor,  and  still  the  Liberal  Opposition  gained  ground 
constantly.  And  now  it  is  well  enough  understood  that 
it  is  the  Chancellor's  programme  for  which  the  Emperor 
is  merely  serving  as  a  breastwork.  The  Emperor's  procla- 
mation will  therefore  be  less  calculated  to  strengthen  the 
Minister  than  to  weaken  himself. 

But,  after  all,  as  long  as  the  Emperor  lives  and  Prince 
Bismarck  holds  sway  over  him,  the  agitation  for  consti- 
tutional reform  will  scarcely  result  in  a  movement  strong 
enough  to  overturn  their  favorite  principles  of  govern- 
ment and  to  put  in  their  place  a  system  with  which  they 
think  they  cannot  carry  on  the  affairs  of  the  Empire.  The 
popular  respect  for  the  person  of  the  aged  monarch  and 
for  the  eminent  services  rendered  by  the  Chancellor,  as 
well  as  the  belief  in  the  latter  as  the  "necessary  man"  to 
conduct  the  foreign  policy  of  Germany,  are  still  too  strong 
to  encourage  a  movement  which,  to  succeed,  must  not 
shrink  from  general  and  uncompromising  hostility  to 
them.  But  the  Emperor  is  old  and  cannot  in  the  course 
of  nature  hold  the  reins  much  longer.  Whether  his  suc- 
cessor would  be  as  firmly  wedded  as  his  father  to  the 
system  at  present  existing,  and  whether  under  him 
Prince  Bismarck  may  hope  to  wield  the  same  power 
with  the  same  devoted  support  of  the  sovereign  as  here- 


334    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

tofore,  is  at  least  questionable.  It  is  popularly  believed 
that  he  would  not,  even  if  he  were  to  remain  in  his  pres- 
ent position,  and  this  popular  belief  will  be  sufficient  to 
stimulate  to  fresh,  more  vigorous,  and  more  hopeful 
efforts  the  aspirations  for  a  government  of  constitutional 
responsibility,  the  want  of  which  has  now  become  once 
more  so  strikingly  apparent. 


GENEKAL  SHERMAN 
By  J.  D.  Cox 

(February  19,  1891) 

General  William  Tecumseii  Sherman  came  of  the 
well-known  colonial  family  of  that  name  which  was  set- 
tled at  Boston  before  1636.  Several  of  them  removed  to 
Connecticut  very  early,  and  became  prominent  in  the 
history  of  that  colony.  His  grandfather,  Judge  Taylor 
Sherman  of  Norwalk,  was  one  of  the  Connecticut  Com- 
missioners to  organize  for  settlement  the  "fire  lands"  in 
Ohio,  a  reservation  appropriated  to  the  sufferers  by  the 
coast  raids  of  Arnold  and  the  British  in  the  Revolution. 
This  led  to  a  family  migration  to  Ohio,  and  Charles  R. 
Sherman,  the  General's  father,  fixed  his  home  at  Lancas- 
ter, in  the  central  part  of  the  State,  a  pretty  town  in 
a  lovely  region.  He  attained  distinction  as  a  practising 
lawyer  at  the  local  bar,  where  Thomas  Ewing  and  Henry 
Stanbery  were  leaders.  The  fact  that  the  Indian  Chief 
Tecumseh  was  recognized  as  a  man  of  great  qualities  can- 
not have  better  proof  than  in  Charles  Sherman's  nam- 
ing his  son  William  after  him,  in  the  frontier  region  where 
the  qualities  of  the  red  man  usually  remembered  are 
those  which  excite  horror  and  alarm.  The  same  fact 
shows  the  large-minded  candor  of  the  elder  Sherman. 

The  General  was  born  in  1820,  being  about  midway 
in  a  large  family  of  eleven  children.  His  father  was  Judge 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Ohio  from  1821  till  his  sudden 
death  in  1829  from  over-exposure  to  the  sun  in  travelling 
the  circuit  in  June.  His  accumulations  had  been  small, 
and  the  mother,  Mary  Hoyt  Sherman,  had  need  of  all 
the  energy  characteristic  of  the  colonial  families  to  meet 


336    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

the  burden  thrown  upon  her.  The  hearty  good  neighbor- 
hood of  such  settlements  made  her  friends  efficient  in 
finding  means  of  livelihood  for  the  growing  children,  and 
William  T.  was  adopted  into  the  family  of  Mr.  Ewing, 
whose  daughter,  Ellen  Boyle  Ewing,  he  afterwards  mar- 
ried. He  had  the  advantage  of  education  in  a  good 
academy  at  Lancaster,  and  was  appointed  a  cadet  in  the 
Military  Academy  at  West  Point  in  1836.  He  graduated 
in  1840,  being  sixth  in  a  class  of  forty-three.  He  was  com- 
missioned in  the  army  as  a  subaltern  in  the  Third  Artil- 
lery and  was  immediately  sent  to  Florida,  where  the 
Seminole  War  was  dragging  towards  its  slow  termination. 
His  service  till  the  Mexican  War  was  in  the  Southern 
Atlantic  and  Gulf  States,  including  duties  which  took 
him  over  the  ground  in  which  his  campaign  of  Atlanta 
and  the  March  to  the  Sea  afterwards  occurred,  and 
he  gained  what  proved  to  be  invaluable  topographical 
knowledge  of  a  region  of  which  there  were  no  maps 
worthy  of  the  name.  He  was  at  home  on  recruiting 
service  when  the  war  with  Mexico  began  in  1846,  and 
immediately  applied  for  work  in  the  field.  He  was 
ordered  to  New  York,  assigned  to  Company  F  in  his 
regiment,  and  with  his  battery  was  shipped  in  the  store- 
ship  Lexington  to  California  by  way  of  Cape  Horn. 
The  ship  visited  Rio  Janeiro  and  Valparaiso  on  the  route, 
reaching  Monterey  after  a  long  voyage  of  almost  two 
hundred  days.  Mexico  was  too  busy  with  the  invasion 
by  Scott  and  Taylor  to  make  any  strong  effort  to  hold 
the  province  of  Upper  California,  and  it  fell  into  our 
hands  with  the  merest  show  of  opposition.  There  was 
no  fighting  for  Sherman  to  do,  but  the  organization  of  a 
new  dependency  was  thrown  upon  the  military  and  naval 
officers,  and  he  had  a  very  active  share  in  that  work. 
His  energy  and  strong  business  sense  secured  for  him  the 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  337 

selection  as  Acting  Adjutant-General  of  the  Department, 
and  he  rode  and  sailed  from  one  end  of  California  to  the 
other  in  his  active  performance  of  all  sorts  of  duties 
connected  with  the  Administration.  Generals  Halleck 
and  Ord  were  among  his  intimates  of  his  own  age,  and 
Hooker  served  with  him  a  little  later. 

The  discovery  of  gold,  the  wild  rush  of  men  of  all 
countries  to  the  mines,  the  submerging  of  the  old  Spanish 
population  by  the  newcomers,  the  organization  of  a  new 
State  and  its  admission  to  the  Union,  made  a  wonderful 
experience  for  the  young  soldier,  though  not  strictly  of 
the  military  kind.  Friends  in  the  East  tempted  him  to 
leave  the  army  and  embark  in  a  banking  business  at  San 
Francisco,  in  which  he  spent  several  years,  managing  the 
capital  of  others  with  a  sturdy  honesty  and  good  sense 
which  carried  the  house  safe  through  the  panic  of  1855, 
and  established  for  himself  the  reputation  of  a  safe  and 
conservative  man  of  affairs,  who  kept  his  personal  in- 
terests strictly  subordinate  to  the  trusts  which  were  put 
in  his  hands.  The  period  of  financial  depression  culmi- 
nated in  1857,  and  Sherman,  oblivious  of  himself,  advised 
the  capitalists  with  whom  he  was  associated  to  close  a  busi- 
ness which  seemed  to  have  risks  disproportioned  to  any 
profits  which  could  be  realized  without  rash  speculation. 

Thrown  again  upon  his  own  resources,  a  year  or  two 
was  spent  in  tentative  efforts  to  open  a  new  professional 
or  business  career,  and  in  1859  he  was  invited  to  become 
Superintendent  of  a  State  Military  Academy  established 
in  Louisiana.  He  accepted  the  position,  full  of  faith  that 
the  threats  of  civil  war  which  were  already  rife  at  the 
South  would  amount  to  nothing,  and  that  a  congenial 
career  was  opening  to  him.  Less  than  two  years  brought 
home  to  him  a  second  time  the  severest  test  of  principle. 
Would  he  give  up  his  support  and  that  of  his  young 


338    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

family  —  would  he  abandon  what  he  had  hoped  would 
be  a  pleasant  life-work  —  as  a  matter  of  patriotic  duty? 
As  soon  as  it  became  evident  that  Louisiana  would 
secede,  he  resigned  his  place  and  returned  home. 

At  this  time  he  seems  to  have  refused  to  believe  that 
war  was  imminent,  and  to  have  had  no  expectation  of 
resuming  his  military  career.  He  did  not  sympathize  with 
the  anti-slavery  movement  in  the  North.  John  Sherman's 
identification  with  the  Republican  party  as  one  of  its 
leaders  was  not  pleasant  to  him,  and  he  used  strong 
language  about  the  "politicians"  who  were,  as  he 
thought,  needlessly  destroying  the  Union.  When  the 
South  began  active  war  by  the  attack  on  Fort  Sumter, 
he  expressed  a  willingness  to  reenter  the  regular  army, 
but  thought  his  duty  to  his  wife  and  children  forbade  his 
entering  the  volunteer  service  for  only  three  months,  the 
extent  of  Lincoln's  first  call  for  troops.  He  tried  the 
superintendence  of  a  street-railway  company  in  St. 
Louis,  as  a  stop-gap  and  breadwinner  for  the  moment, 
but  tendered  his  military  service  to  the  Government 
when  the  call  for  three  years'  men  was  issued.  He  was 
appointed  Colonel  of  the  Thirteenth  Infantry,  regular 
army,  on  May  14, 1861,  and  immediately  went  to  Wash- 
ington, where  he  was  put  upon  inspection  duty  with 
the  new  volunteer  army  collecting  there,  while  his  subor- 
dinates in  the  regiment  were  recruiting  and  organizing  it 
in  different  parts  of  the  West. 

The  interval  since  he  had  resigned  from  the  army  in 
1853  had  been  full  of  varied  experience  for  him,  and  at 
times  his  outlook  had  been  anything  but  promising;  but 
he  had  faced  every  exigency  with  manly  courage  and 
highest  principle,  always  asking  first  what  was  his  duty, 
and  putting  last  the  question  of  his  advantage.  In  the 
providential  education  which  fits  men  for  a  great  career, 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  339 

the  eight  years  were  of  more  importance  than  he  dreamed 
of.  He  had  learned  how  to  turn  his  hand  (and  his  brain) 
to  almost  anything.  He  had  developed  self-reliance  and 
patience  in  adversity.  He  had  broadened  his  views  of 
the  world,  and  had  been  freed  from  the  narrowing  effect 
of  military  routine.  He  had  greatly  matured  all  his  ideas 
and  grown  large  in  moral  courage  and  in  will.  In  short, 
he  was  fitted  for  command. 

He  commanded  a  brigade  in  the  first  battle  of  Bull 
Run,  and  in  the  turmoil  of  the  retreat  to  Washington  saw 
how  much  was  to  be  done  to  make  an  army  out  of  the 
noble  but  untrained  material  which  flocked  to  the  stan- 
dard. Very  soon  General  Robert  Anderson  asked  for 
him  to  assist  in  the  organization  in  Kentucky  of  the 
Army  of  the  Ohio,  and  he  was  sent  West  with  the  grade 
of  Brigadier-General.  When  Anderson's  health  failed,  he 
succeeded  to  the  department  command,  and  his  energetic 
representations  as  to  what  must  be  done  in  the  West  to 
carry  on  the  war  successfully  seemed  so  extravagant 
to  Cameron,  the  Secretary  of  War,  that  Sherman  was 
pushed  aside  as  unpractical  and  harebrained.  In  truth, 
he  was  so  devoured  by  his  ideas  of  the  importance  of  the 
task  the  nation  had  undertaken,  and  of  the  absolute 
necessity  of  success  in  it,  that  his  ardent  temperament 
might  well  make  his  words  like  those  of  a  man  possessed. 
Here,  at  least,  was  a  regular-army  officer  who  was  dead  in 
earnest  in  pushing  every  resource  of  the  country  to  the 
utmost  to  match  the  terrible  energy  the  South  was 
showing.  He  would  have  despised  himself  if  he  could 
have  been  capable  of  sitting  down  quietly  to  the  routine 
of  a  department  command,  or  of  simply  obeying  orders, 
without  trying  to  stimulate  those  above  him  to  rise  to  his 
high  conception  of  the  needs  of  the  time  and  of  the  only 
road  to  success. 


340    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

Reduced  to  a  subordinate  position,  he  did  not  sulk.  He 
still  tried  to  do  more  than  was  required  in  his  post,  and 
to  volunteer  aid  from  his  surplus  energy  to  help  others 
without  jealousy  or  self-seeking.  Thus  he  organized 
troops  at  Padueah  to  be  sent  up  the  Tennessee  River  to 
Grant,  though  they  passed  from  his  command  and  he 
had  to  go  on  organizing  new  brigades  from  the  raw  re- 
cruits coming  in.  He  did  not  hesitate  a  moment  to  take 
a  division  to  Pittsburgh  Landing,  and  thus  his  connection 
with  General  Grant  began.  It  would  be  hard  to  over- 
estimate the  action  and  reaction  of  these  two  men  upon 
each  other.  Each  supplemented  the  other,  each  appre- 
ciated the  things  in  the  other  which  he  himself  lacked. 
Each  seemed  at  his  best  when  cooperating  with  the  other. 
From  that  time  Sherman's  history  is  the  history  of  the 
war  in  the  Gulf  States  —  too  long  a  story  for  such  a 
notice  as  this,  but  one  in  which  his  courage  and  his 
patience,  his  energy  and  his  self-command,  his  invention 
and  his  practical  skill,  his  enterprise  and  his  subordi- 
nation, all  and  each  were  elements  in  a  great  and  con- 
tinuous success  which  never  elated  him,  but  seemed  to 
make  his  judgment  and  his  conduct  ever  safer  and  surer 
till  final  victory  came,  and  the  world  was  in  doubt  whether 
he  or  his  great  chief  had  the  larger  part  in  it. 

Sherman's  patriotism  was  as  true  in  1861  as  it  was  four 
years  later,  but  it  was  different  in  kind.  He  began  the 
war  under  the  sense  of  solemn  duty  to  uphold  the  Con- 
stitution and  the  Union  by  fighting  for  the  flag.  He  had 
been  trained  in  the  school  of  which  his  distinguished 
father-in-law,  Thomas  Ewing,  was  a  leader.  He  disliked 
slavery,  and  wished  to  see  it  die  out  by  the  progress  of 
enlightened  civilization,  but  he  could  endure  it  and  live 
in  a  society  where  it  existed.  He  advocated  immediate 
amelioration  of  the  slave's  condition  and  his  education: 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  341 

but  he  thought  the  men  were  fools  who  advocated  im- 
mediate abolition.  He  would  have  carried  out  Clay's 
compromises  and  waited  for  the  progress  of  mankind  to 
solve  the  rest  of  the  problem. 

The  war  taught  him  that  peace  could  only  come  with 
universal  emancipation;  yet  even  in  April,  1865,  he  was 
willing  to  accept  the  practical  certainty  of  this,  and  not 
to  insist  upon  its  formal  acknowledgment  by  the  South. 
He  thought  it  a  fact  accomplished  by  Lincoln's  procla- 
mation, and  was  not  averse  to  smoothing  the  way  to 
restored  national  relations  by  letting  this  be  tacitly  rec- 
ognized in  the  final  surrender.  When  once  the  war  was 
over,  however,  he  advocated  everything  which  could  be 
fairly  considered  the  logical  consequence  of  the  victory, 
and  was  one  of  the  rare  instances  of  men  who  become 
less  conservative  as  they  grow  older. 

He  persistently  refused  to  be  a  candidate  for  the 
Presidency  when  it  was  notorious  that  he  had  but  to 
say  the  word  and  he  would  be  the  nominee  of  the  Repub- 
lican party.  It  is  possible  that  in  this  he  was  influenced 
by  his  brotherly  wish  that  Senator  Sherman  should  have 
the  political  honors,  as  he  himself  had  the  military  ones; 
but  he  was  consistent  in  it,  for  he  always  maintained 
that  Grant's  leaving  the  army  to  be  made  President  was 
the  great  error  of  his  life.  The  force  of  association  made 
him  more  a  party  man  in  his  later  years  than  his  earlier, 
but  no  one  can  doubt  the  quenchless  fire  of  his  patriotism, 
and  his  absolute  devotion  to  what  he  regarded  as  the  good 
of  his  whole  country. 

His  outspoken  frankness  was  a  very  striking  trait  of 
his  character.  It  was  not  always  bluntness  in  the  com- 
mon meaning  of  that  term.  It  was  rather  the  complete 
unreserve  of  one  who  was  willing  to  have  you  see  into  his 
inmost  soul,  and  who  was  incapable  of  a  pretence.  With 


342    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

this  was  a  genial  courtesy  which  was  often  very  taking  in 
his  intercourse  with  men,  and  peculiarly  so  with  women. 
His  memoirs  are  one  of  the  most  noteworthy  examples 
of  self-revealing  in  the  whole  range  of  autobiography. 
Those  who  were  nearest  to  him  in  his  career  know  best 
how  absolutely  truthful  is  his  story  of  his  life,  his  motives, 
his  judgments,  his  ambitions.  He  held  it  to  be  part  of 
his  duty  to  truth  and  to  the  development  of  military 
science  that  he  should  not  withhold  his  unfavorable 
judgment  when  he  had  so  judged,  nor  gloze  over  the 
rough  passages  of  military  experience  by  a  general  var- 
nish of  praise.  He  acknowledged  his  liability  to  error,  and 
said  he  should  be  as  glad  as  any  other  to  have  his  errors 
corrected.  His  opening  the  appendix  of  his  second  edi- 
tion to  those  who  might  think  he  had  wronged  them,  was 
an  unexampled  thing  of  its  kind. 

As  an  officer  in  the  field,  his  loyalty  to  his  superiors 
was  always  transparent.  He  would  urge  his  opinions:  he 
would  boldly  use  such  discretion  as  was  given  him;  he 
would  suggest  plans;  but  when  the  proper  authority, 
military  or  civil,  had  spoken,  he  did  what  was  ordered 
with  as  faithful  a  zeal  as  if  he  were  carrying  out  his  own 
ideas.  His  criticisms  were  always  in  the  interest  of  the 
common  purpose,  never  selfish.  He  gave  the  full  power 
of  his  brain  to  helping  perfect  the  plan,  and  neither  gave 
nor  took  offence  in  doing  so.  When  success  was  reached 
by  different  means  from  those  he  had  advised,  as  in 
Grant's  investment  of  Vicksburg,  his  hearty  recognition 
of  it  was  not  diminished  by  a  jealous  word  or  thought. 

He  was  never  a  martinet.  He  says  himself  that  he  was 
not  in  good  "form"  enough  to  be  an  officer  of  cadets, 
and  remained  in  the  ranks.  He  knew  that  in  military 
matters  form  is  apt  to  overtop  substance.  He  wanted 
everything  to  be  subordinate  to  the  end.    If  pipe-clay, 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  343 

knapsacks,  and  leather  stocks  made  the  soldier  march 
or  fight  less  energetically,  he  wanted  black  belts,  loose 
blouses,  and  blankets  across  the  shoulder;  and  so  with 
tactics.  Simplicity  of  movement,  few  manoeuvres,  speed 
in  getting  to  the  proper  position,  and  good  fighting 
shape  when  there,  these  were  in  his  eyes  the  important 
thing,  and  all  the  world  has  come  to  his  opinion. 

The  two  or  three  great  captains  in  any  age  are  alike 
in  the  supreme  qualities  which  make  a  general.  They 
have  the  unruffled  presence  of  mind  which  makes  their 
intellectual  operations  most  sure  and  true  in  the  greatest 
and  most  sudden  peril,  and  the  true  greatness  which 
makes  the  most  momentous  decision  and  unhesitating 
action  under  vast  responsibility  as  if  these  were  the 
everyday  work  of  their  lives.  The  present  generation 
has  in  our  army  seen  two  such,  Grant  and  Sherman.  It 
is  doubtful  if  it  has  seen  a  third.  A  number  of  brilliant 
names  of  the  second  order  might  have  developed  into 
the  highest  rank,  but  none  can  fully  claim  it  who  has 
not  handled  a  hundred  thousand  men  in  an  independent 
campaign. 

It  remains  only  to  add  that  General  Sherman  was 
better  loved  the  better  he  was  known.  His  subordinates 
who  gave  him  zealous  service  have  no  sores  or  scars 
caused  by  his  rule.  He  could  command  without  being 
arrogant.  He  weighed  all  good  reasons,  he  listened  to  all 
reasonable  complaints.  He  was  a  good  comrade  and  a 
loyal  friend  who  made  no  pretence  of  superiority,  but 
who  knew  when  and  how  to  give  the  word  of  command. 
The  country  has  lost  a  great  and  pure  character  and  a 
great  patriot,  and  will  find  him  greater  as  the  seasons 
pass  over  his  grave. 


A  GREAT  EXAMPLE 
By  E.  L.  Godkest 
(November  10,  1892) 

When  Mr.  Cleveland,  in  December  of  1887,  sent  in  his 
anti-tariff  message,  there  was  hardly  a  prominent  man 
in  his  party  who  did  not  think  he  had  made  a  great  mis- 
take. Even  those  who  agreed  to  the  full  with  his  opinions 
thought  the  publication  of  them  a  piece  of  magnificent 
folly,  for  which  he  and  the  party  were  sure  to  suffer. 
His  reelection  before  he  wrote  his  message  was,  as  he 
stood,  all  but  certain.  Even  the  Republicans,  large  num- 
bers of  whom  had  come  over  to  him  as,  on  the  whole,  a 
wise  and  prudent  statesman,  admitted  this.  It  seemed 
as  if  his  canvass,  in  spite  of  the  poor  antecedents  of  his 
party,  would  be  a  walkover.  He  aggravated  his  fault, 
from  the  politicians'  point  of  view,  by  failure  to  consult 
with  them  before  taking  his  plunge.  The  language  of 
the  message  was  not  sufficiently  studied,  some  said.  It 
showed  want  of  thorough  familiarity  with  the  workings 
of  the  tariff,  said  others.  Others,  again,  wished  that 
before  he  wrote  it  he  had  made  a  more  thorough  study 
of  political  economy.  But,  for  one  reason  or  another,  all 
except  a  few  of  the  more  enthusiastic  tariff  reformers 
thought  he  had  destroyed  his  own  usefulness  as  a  can- 
didate, and  condemned  his  party  to  another  period  of 
eclipse.  What  groaning  and  moaning  over  him  there  was 
among  "  the  practical  men"  during  the  remainder  of  the 
winter!  How  they  cursed  the  Mugwumps  and  the  pro- 
fessors for  leading  him  astray !  How  sure  they  were  that 
the  American  people  would  not  stand  such  foolishness! 
How  glad  his  enemies  —  the  Hill  men,  Tammany  men, 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  345 

and  political  debauchees  of  every  description  —  were  that 
he  had  planned  his  own  destruction  and  would  soon 
trouble  the  party  councils  no  more. 

His  defeat  came  almost  as  a  matter  of  course.  His 
message  took  the  public,  bred  in  protectionist  fallacies, 
by  surprise.  It  alarmed  the  manufacturers,  and  gave  the 
Quays  a  larger  fund  than  they  had  ever  had  before  to 
save  their  monopoly.  He  was  nominated  largely  because 
the  party  had  no  one  else  of  any  prominence  to  put  up, 
and  almost  with  a  certainty  of  failure.  Mr.  Cleveland 
went  back  into  private  life  with  serenity,  leaving  his  mes- 
sage to  be  pondered,  and  leaving  the  Republicans  in  full 
possession  of  the  Government,  with  full  power  to  push 
the  protectionist  principle  to  any  extreme  they  pleased. 
It  then  soon  appeared  that  the  message  was  a  stroke  of 
genius ;  that  it  had  at  last  secured  for  the  tariff  thorough 
popular  attention  and  discussion,  such  as  no  speech, 
article,  or  book  could  secure  for  it.  Its  very  simplicity, 
its  freedom  from  details,  its  avoidance  of  the  reserves, 
qualifications,  and  discriminations  which  a  more  erudite 
economist  would  have  introduced  into  it,  proved  its  great- 
est merit.  There  never  was  a  more  signal  illustration  of 
the  poet's  saying,  that  a  mans'  best  "  armor  is  his  honest 
thought,  and  simple  truth  his  utmost  skill."  The  fact 
that  the  author  had  staked  his  chance  of  the  Presidency 
on  it,  had  issued  it  in  defiance  of  the  advice  of  the 
worldly-wise,  and  was  prepared  to  live  or  die  by  it,  was 
an  appeal  of  the  utmost  power  to  the  love  and  admira- 
tion which  the  American  people,  and  all  people  of  the 
Western  World,  feel  for  the  man  who  is  not  afraid  — 
who  says,  with  the  noble  army  of  martyrs  and  the  goodly 
company  of  patriots  and  reformers  of  all  ages  and  all 
countries,  "Here  I  stand.  I  can  do  no  otherwise,  God 
help  me." 


346    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

In  his  letter  about  silver  Mr.  Cleveland  gave  another 
and  almost  as  striking  a  proof  of  the  wisdom  of  his  bold- 
ness. When  he  wrote  it,  in  February,  1891,  his  party 
was  apparently  bent  on  rushing  down  another  steep 
place  to  its  ruin  by  conniving  at  or  avoiding  collision 
with  the  currency  lunatics,  who,  in  conjunction  with  a 
band  of  tricky  mining  speculators,  were  trying  to  debase 
the  currency  of  a  great  commercial  nation.  The  "prac- 
tical men  "  again  thought  that,  as  a  possible  candidate, 
he  ought  carefully  to  hold  his  peace  about  this  immense 
folly  and  wickedness,  or,  if  he  spoke  at  all,  clothe  his 
thought  in  such  cloudy  phraseology  that  it  could  be  made 
to  bear  two  or  three  meanings,  if  not  wholly  to  conceal 
it  from  the  popular  understanding.  But  he  refused  to  be 
a  party  to  this  little  stroke  of  low  cunning,  and,  taking 
his  courage,  as  the  French  say,  in  both  hands,  gave  the 
silver  folly  a  blow  from  which  it  never  recovered.  He 
blew  it  clean  out  of  the  party  mind  and  the  party  plat- 
form by  a  single  shot.  Again  the  shrewd  politicians  sat 
down  on  the  party  stoop  and  wept,  and  prepared  sor- 
rowfully to  nominate  a  first-class  juggler  in  the  person 
of  David  B.  Hill,  who  was  to  show  the  wretched  Mug- 
wumps how  much  better  it  was  to  be  able  to  keep  six 
balls  in  the  air  at  once  than  to  be  able  to  show  the  ab- 
surdity of  a  fluctuating  currency.  In  one  year  that  letter 
of  February  had  again  confounded  the  shrewd,  and  put 
heart  and  hope  into  the  timid  and  shifty. 

Mr.  Cleveland's  triumph  to-day  has  been  largely  due 
to  the  young  voters  who  have  come  on  the  stage  since 
the  reign  of  passion  and  prejudice  came  to  an  end  and  the 
era  of  discussion  has  opened.  If  the  last  canvass  has  con- 
sisted largely  of  appeals  to  reason,  to  facts,  to  the  lessons 
of  human  experience,  to  the  teachings  of  Christianity 
and  science,  and  has  brought  confusion  on  the  preachers 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  347 

of  mediaeval  barbarism  and  absurdity;  if  it  has  put  a 
stamp  of  horror  and  contempt  on  the  attempts  to  make 
mutual  hate  a  necessary  accompaniment  of  peaceful 
industrial  competition  —  thus  furnishing  Socialism  with 
one  of  its  best  weapons  —  it  is  to  Mr.  Cleveland,  let  us 
tell  them,  they  owe  it.  But  they  are  indebted  to  him  for 
something  far  more  valuable  than  even  this —  for  an 
example  of  splendid  courage  in  the  defence  and  assertion 
of  honestly  formed  opinions;  of  Roman  constancy  under 
defeat,  and  of  patient  reliance  on  the  power  of  delibera- 
tion and  persuasion  on  the  American  people.  Nothing  is 
more  important,  in  these  days  of  "boodle,"  of  indiffer- 
ence, of  cheap  bellicose  patriotism,  than  that  this  confi- 
dence in  the  might  of  common  sense  and  sound  doctrine 
and  free  speech  should  be  kept  alive. 


HELMHOLTZ 
By  C.  S.  Peirce 
(September  13, 1894) 

Dr.  Hermann  Helmholtz,  as  his  contemporaries 
have  called  him,  the  acknowledged  and  worshipped  head 
of  the  scientific  guild,  is  gone.  He  was  born  on  August 
31,  1821,  at  Potsdam,  where  his  father  was  professor  of 
the  gymnasium.  His  mother's  maiden  name  was  Caroline 
Penn ;  she  came  of  a  branch  of  that  family  settled  in 
Germany  since  the  religious  troubles  in  England.  From 
childhood  Hermann  had  a  passion  for  science;  but  the 
nineteenth  century  came  near  missing  this  great  light, 
for  the  circumstances  of  the  family  were  such  that  no 
road  to  science  was  open  to  him  except  that  of  studying 
medicine  in  the  Military  Institute  of  Berlin.  He  took  his 
degree  of  M.D.  in  1842,  and  his  inaugural  dissertation, 
the  only  Latin  publication  of  his  life,  related  to  the  nerv- 
ous systems  of  invertebrate  animals.  He  was  at  once 
attached  to  the  service  of  charity,  and  began  without 
delay  to  study  putrefaction,  upon  which  in  1843  he  pub- 
lished a  memoir  maintaining  its  purely  chemical  nature 
—  an  opinion  subsequently  surrendered.  He  soon  re- 
turned to  Potsdam  a  surgeon  in  the  army.  In  1845  he 
was  employed  with  good  reason  to  write  articles  on  ani- 
mal heat  in  a  medical  encyclopaedia  of  high  character, 
and  in  the  yearly  report  upon  the  progress  of  physics. 
The  same  year  he  printed  an  original  investigation  of  the 
waste  of  substance  of  a  muscle  in  action. 

After  that,  for  about  two  years,  he  produced  nothing. 
It  was  one  of  those  periods  of  seeming  idleness  to  which 
the  most  productive  geniuses  are  subject,  and  which  af- 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  349 

ford  mediocrity  matter  for  carping.  Other  young  scien- 
tists filled  the  journals  of  1846  with  the  records  of  their 
industry,  but  not  one  syllable  came  from  Helmholtz. 
He  was  not  heard  from  until  1847,  and  not  till  July  23, 
when  he  read  a  paper  before  the  Physical  Society  of 
Berlin.  This  paper  was  entitled  "The  Conservation  of 
Force."  In  the  judgment  of  many  of  those  who  have 
examined  the  matter,  it  was  the  epoch-making  work  from 
which  alone  the  greatest  scientific  discovery  that  man 
has  ever  made  must  date.  Certainly  it  was  the  argument 
which  produced  the  intense  conviction  with  which  the 
world  has  held  that  doctrine  ever  since.  It  is  fair  to  say 
that  other  excellent  critics,  and  Helmholtz  himself  among 
them,  award  the  merit  of  the  first  enunciation  of  the  great 
law  to  Robert  Mayer,  who,  in  1842,  had  published  a  paper 
which  attracted  no  attention  whatever,  and  of  which 
Helmholtz  in  1847  was  as  little  aware  as  the  rest  of  the 
world.  But,  in  any  case,  there  is  no  doubt  that  Helmholtz 
was  the  first  to  conceive  the  proposition  from  the  point 
of  view  which  made  it  so  attractive  to  all  accurate 
thinkers  and  so  wonderfully  fecund  in  new  truth. 

According  to  his  statement,  nothing  exists  in  the  outer 
world  but  matter.  Matter  in  itself  (an  sicli)  is  capable  of 
no  alteration  but  motion  in  space,  and  these  motions  are 
modified  only  by  fixed  attractions  and  repulsions,  and 
this  is  true  everywhere,  even  in  the  actions  of  animals  and 
men.  It  was  an  amazingly  bold  assertion,  utterly  opposed 
to  almost  every  kind  of  philosophy,  certainly  to  Kantian 
and  all  post-Kantian  idealism,  as  well  as  to  the  nominal- 
istic  idealism  of  the  English  school,  which  such  writers  as 
Ernst  Mach  have  taken  up.  But  the  implicit  faith  with 
which  it  has  been  received  is  a  singular  psychological 
phenomenon,  for  the  theory  that  all  human  actions  are 
subjected  to  a  law  having  no  teleological  character,  when 


350    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

we  know  (or  seem  to  know)  that  our  actions  are  adjusted 
to  purposes,  has  obvious  difficulties;  and  the  experi- 
mental evidence  of  the  correctness  of  the  law  as  applied 
to  animal  physiology  is  very  slender.  Indeed,  some  of  the 
most  careful  researches  (as  those  of  Fick  and  Wislicenus) 
have  led  to  results  directly  opposed  to  it.  Yet  the  physi- 
ologists, one  and  all  —  the  judicious  Michael  Foster,  for 
example  —  simply  treat  those  results  as  absurd.  In  this 
aspect  Helmholtz's  great  doctrine  appears  as  the  pet 
petitio  principii  of  our  time.  Its  truth  was  unquestion- 
able, in  the  only  sense  in  which  anything  based  on  induc- 
tion can  rationally  be  admitted  as  true,  namely,  its  close 
approximation  to  exactitude.  Nobody  can  deny  that  it  is 
at  once  the  crown  and  the  key  of  physical  science.  In 
that  memoir,  by  the  way,  Helmholtz  first  displayed  his 
facility  in  applying  the  calculus  to  unaccustomed  prob- 
lems —  a  facility  very  surprising  in  a  man  of  twenty-six 
whose  studies  had  been  supposed  to  lie  in  the  direction  of 
anatomy  and  physiology.  Surely,  in  the  company  of  that 
memorable  meeting  of  the  Physical  Society  there  must 
have  been  some  who  were  able  to  discern  that  they  were 
in  the  presence  of  one  of  the  most  stupendous  intellects 
that  the  human  race  has  yet  produced. 

Of  course,  a  reward  was  due  from  organized  humanity 
to  the  man  who  had  thus  lifted  man's  mind  to  a  higher 
vantage  ground.  And  this  reward  came,  for  the  next  year 
he  was  created  no  less  than  assistant  in  the  Anatomical 
Museum  of  Berlin.  He  now  began  to  occupy  himself 
with  the  physiology  of  hearing.  In  1849  he  was  ap- 
pointed supplementary  (or  extraordinary)  professor  of 
physiology  in  the  University  of  Konigsberg  (without 
salary),  and  in  1850,  on  July  19,  he  communicated  to  the 
Physical  Society  of  Berlin  an  elaborate  memoir  breaking 
ground  in  the  interesting  field  of  the  measurement  of  the 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  351 

duration  of  nerve-actions.  In  1851  he  invented  the 
ophthalmoscope,  for  which  many  and  many  a  human 
being  has  owed  him  his  eyesight.  This  year  he  began  an 
original  study  of  electrodynamics.  In  1852  he  was  pro- 
moted to  a  regular  chair  in  the  university.  His  discourse 
upon  his  installation  dealt  with  peripheral  sensations  in 
general,  especially  those  of  sight  and  hearing.  It  was  a 
comparison  of  the  relation  existing  between  the  vibra- 
tions that  excite  a  given  sense,  and  those  existing  between 
the  sensations  themselves.  We  remark  that  while  the 
memoir  on  the  "Conservation  of  Force"  fairly  bristled 
with  repetitions  of  the  philosophical  phrase  an  sich  (in  it- 
self), it  is  in  this  discourse  carefully  avoided.  It  would 
seem  that  something  must  have  happened  in  the  interval 
which  made  Helmholtz  dread  an  sick  as  a  burnt  child 
does  fire.  In  this  paper,  such  ingenuity  is  used  to  avoid 
it  that  but  once  does  it  slip  in,  and  then  in  a  negative 
phrase.  But  since  the  idea  was  there,  we  cannot  praise 
Helmholtz  for  not  giving  it  its  proper  dress. 

In  giving  the  substance  of  his  lecture,  we  need  not  imi- 
tate his  circumlocutions  to  avoid  this  natural  phrase. 
His  point  was  this :  vibration-systems  essentially  different 
give  rise  to  precisely  the  same  color-sensations.  There 
are  three  fundamental  color-sensations,  which,  being 
mingled  in  different  amounts,  give  rise  to  all  others;  but 
there  is  nothing  corresponding  to  this  tri-dimensionality 
in  the  vibrations  themselves.  On  the  contrary,  the  sen- 
sations of  a  color-blind  person  for  whom  one  of  the  three 
fundamental  sensations  is  non-existent,  much  better  cor- 
respond with  the  facts  in  themselves.  Sounds,  on  the 
whole,  correspond  more  accurately  to  the  vibrations. 
But,  to  the  ear,  the  difference  between  one  rate  of  vi- 
bration and  another  is  hardly  perceptible  until  two  dif- 
ferent sounds  are  compared.   If  a  melody  is  transposed 


352    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

to  another  key,  the  effect  is  nearly  the  same;  but  a 
painter  who  should  transpose  red  to  yellow,  yellow  to 
green,  green  to  blue,  and  blue  to  violet,  would  make  a 
nightmare  of  his  painting.  These  are  certainly  striking 
facts;  but  still  more  interesting  is  it  to  note  what  lesson 
it  was  that  this  typical  nineteenth-century  understand- 
ing drew  from  them.  Other  minds  as  clear  as  his  might 
have  read  here  the  incommensurability  between  mind 
and  matter,  and  have  found  a  refutation  of  materialism 
in  the  circumstance  that  mind  here  acts  as  matter  could 
not  do.  But  the  conclusion  of  Helmholtz  is  that  the 
sense-qualities  distinguish  the  things  in  themselves 
about  as  well  and  about  as  arbitrarily  as  the  names 
Henry,  Charles,  and  John  parcel  out  human  kind. 

Besides  this  " Habilitaiionsvortrag"  a  " Habilitations- 
schrift"  was  expected  from  the  new  professor,  and  this 
last  set  forth  his  theory  of  the  mixture  of  colors.  It  was, 
at  bottom,  the  doctrine  of  Dr.  Thomas  Young;  and  only 
the  careful  comparison  with  observation,  and  the  appli- 
cation of  it  to  explain  effects  of  mixing  pigments  and  the 
like,  were  new.  In  1854  he  attended  the  meeting  of  the 
British  Association  at  Hull,  and  there  read  a  fuller  ac- 
count of  his  theory  of  colors,  which  no  doubt  induced 
Maxwell  to  take  up  this  study,  who  soon  made  it  even 
more  lucid  and  beautiful  than  Helmholtz  had  done.  In 
1855  he  became  professor  of  physiology  at  Bonn.  In  1856 
he  began  the  publication  of  his  great  treatise  on  physio- 
logical optics,  which  was  not  completed  till  ten  years 
later.  On  May  22  of  the  same  year,  he  announced  to  the 
Berlin  Academy  his  discovery  of  combinational  tones, 
which  are  musical  sounds  resulting  from  the  interfer- 
ences of  the  vibrations  making  two  other  sounds. 

In  1858  he  became  professor  in  Heidelberg,  at  that 
time  the  ultimate  goal  of  a  German  professor's  ambition; 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  353 

and  in  the  same  year  he  astonished  the  mathematical 
world  by  his  great  memoir  on  eddies,  or  vortices,  a  mat- 
ter of  fundamental  importance  in  hydrodynamics.  It 
was  a  very  great  and  fruitful  idea  which  he  there  ad- 
vanced, and  which  he  wonderfully  developed.  Much  has 
already  come  from  it,  but  its  full  harvest  yet  remains  to 
be  gathered  in.  No  mathematician  will  dispute  that 
this  was  a  work  only  second  in  importance  to  the  cata- 
clysmic essay  on  the  "Conservation  of  Force."  During 
the  next  two  years  Helmholtz's  acoustical  researches 
were  very  prolific,  and  at  the  same  time  he  published 
remarkable  papers  upon  color-blindness  and  upon  the 
contrasts  of  colors.  In  1860,  on  April  12,  he  read  to  the 
Vienna  Academy  a  paper  giving  measurements  by  his 
pupil,  Von  Pietrowski,  of  the  viscosity  of  fluids,  with  a 
mathematical  discussion  by  himself.  Although  the  sub- 
ject was  not  quite  new,  Stokes's  masterly  work  dating 
from  1851,  still  Maxwell's  researches  were  not  yet  be- 
gun, and  this  memoir  constituted  another  important 
contribution  to  hydrodynamics  and  to  the  general  con- 
ception of  matter.  Helmholtz  himself  very  soon  began 
to  apply  these  ideas  in  acoustics. 

We  next  find  him  engaged  upon  the  difficult  problem 
of  the  horopter  and  the  motions  of  the  eye.  One  of  the 
next  subjects  to  engage  his  attention  was  the  musical 
note  which  is  emitted  from  a  strongly  contracted  mus- 
cle. In  1862  appeared  his  great  work  on  "Sensations 
and  Sound"  and  the  theory  of  music,  and  with  it  the 
main  work  of  his  life  was  accomplished.  Since  that  time 
he  has  indeed  produced  enough  to  make  another  man 
famous;  it  is  little  only  in  comparison  with  his  earlier 
achievements.  He  has  written,  for  example,  papers 
upon  the  facts  underlying  geometry  which  were  sub- 
stantially anticipated  by  Riemann's  great  work,  with 


354    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

which  Helmholtz  would  seem  not  to  have  been  acquaint- 
ed. To  produce  independently  that  which  was  the  proud- 
est laurel  of  one  of  the  most  original  mathematicians 
of  the  ages  was  a  great  feat,  but  it  was  needless.  There 
were  also  a  series  of  memoirs  in  which  Helmholtz  dis- 
cusses all  the  principal  systems  of  formulae  which  have 
been  proposed  by  different  physicists  as  laws  of  electro- 
dynamics. He  gave  the  first  mathematical  explanation 
of  the  formation  of  ordinary  waves  upon  water  —  an 
explanation  which  not  only  enables  us  to  see  why  cer- 
tain forms  of  waves  which  might  exist  are  not  produced 
in  nature,  but  also  throws  much  light  on  other  subjects. 
In  1871,  he  was  appointed  professor  of  physics,  no  longer 
of  physiology,  in  the  university  of  Berlin.  Twenty 
years  later  he  was  made  president  and  director  of  the 
Physikalisch-Technische  Reichsanstalt,  a  foundation  un- 
der the  control  of  the  Imperial  Department  of  the  In- 
terior, for  the  experimental  furthering  of  exact  natural 
inquiry  and  the  technics  of  precision. 

Not  the  slightest  allusion  to  any  moral  or  religious 
problem  ever  dropped  from  the  pen  of  Helmholtz. 
Though  no  reference  to  Hegel  or  Hegelianism  appears 
in  his  pages,  he  more  than  any  other  namable  person 
caused  the  downfall  of  that  kind  of  speculation  in  Ger- 
many, and  brought  in  the  present  admiration  for  the 
English  style  of  philosophizing  which  his  own  so  much 
resembled.  The  temper  of  the  man  was  admirable.  He 
never  indulged  in  one  of  those  reclamations  of  priority 
into  which  scientific  vanity  is  sure  to  be  betrayed,  but 
several  times  published  notes  to  show  that  his  own  re- 
sults were  not  so  new  as  he  and  the  scientific  world  be- 
lieved them  to  be.  He  did  much  to  bring  into  notice  the 
works  of  other  physicists,  among  them  the  Americans 
Rowland  and  Rood  (his  visit  last  year  to  this  county  is 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  355 

freshly  remembered).  He  found  himself  several  times 
engaged  in  controversies  with  redoubtable  antagonists, 
Clausius,  Bertrand,  perhaps  we  may  so  reckon  Land. 
In  every  case  he  so  conducted  himself  as  to  bespeak  an 
imperious  desire  to  find  out  the  truth  and  to  publish  it; 
and  every  approach  to  personality  was  avoided  or  flung 
away  from  him  as  a  pestilential  infection.  The  world 
owes  much  to  the  intellectual  clearness  and  integrity  of 
Hermann  Helmholtz,  M.D. 


GLADSTONE 

By  James  Bryce 

(May  26,  1898) 

No  man  has  lived  in  our  times  of  whom  it  is  so  hard 
to  speak  in  a  concise  and  summary  fashion  as' Mr.  Glad- 
stone. For  forty  years  he  was  so  closely  associated  with 
the  public  affairs  of  his  country  that  the  record  of  his 
parliamentary  life  comes  near  to  being  an  outline  of 
English  politics.  His  activity  spread  itself  out  over 
many  fields.  He  was  the  author  of  several  learned  and 
thoughtful  books,  and  of  a  multitude  of  articles  upon 
all  sorts  of  subjects.  He  showed  himself  as  eagerly 
interested  in  matters  of  classical  scholarship  and  Chris- 
tian doctrine  and  ecclesiastical  history  as  in  questions 
of  national  finance  and  foreign  policy.  No  account 
of  him  could  be  complete  without  reviewing  his  ac- 
tions and  estimating  the  results  of  his  work  in  all  these 
directions. 

But  the  difficulty  of  describing  and  judging  him  goes 
deeper.  His  was  a  singularly  complex  nature,  a  character 
hard  to  unravel.  His  individuality  was  extremely  strong; 
all  that  he  said  or  did  bore  its  impress.  Yet  it  was  an 
individuality  so  far  from  being  self-consistent  as  some- 
times to  seem  a  bundle  of  opposite  qualities  capri- 
ciously united  in  a  single  person.  He  might  with  equal 
truth  be  called,  and  he  has  been  in  fact  called,  a  con- 
servative and  a  revolutionary.  He  was  dangerously 
impulsive,  and  had  frequently  to  suffer  from  his  impul- 
siveness; yet  he  was  also  not  merely  wary  and  cautious, 
but  so  astute  as  to  have  been  accused  of  craft  and  dissimu- 
lation. So  great  was  his  respect  for  authority  and  tradi- 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  357 

tion  that  lie  clung  to  views  regarding  the  unity  of  Homer 
and  the  historical  claims  of  Christian  sacerdotalism 
which  the  majority  of  competent  specialists  have  now 
rejected.  So  bold  was  he  in  practical  matters  that  he 
transformed  the  British  Constitution,  changed  the 
course  of  English  policy  in  the  Orient,  destroyed  an 
established  church  in  one  part  of  the  United  Kingdom, 
and  committed  himself  to  the  destruction  of  two  estab- 
lished churches  in  two  other  parts.  He  came  near  to  be- 
ing a  Roman  Catholic  in  his  religious  opinions,  yet  was 
for  twenty  years  the  darling  leader  of  the  English  Protes- 
tant Nonconformists  and  the  Scotch  Presbyterians. 
No  one  who  knew  him  intimately  doubted  his  conscien- 
tious sincerity  and  earnestness,  yet  four  fifths  of  the 
English  upper  classes  were,  in  his  later  years,  wont  to 
regard  him  as  a  self-interested  schemer  who  would  sacri- 
fice his  country  to  his  lust  for  power.  Though  he  loved 
general  principles,  and  often  soared  out  of  the  sight  of  his 
audience  when  discussing  them,  he  generally  ended  by 
deciding  upon  points  of  detail  the  question  at  issue.  He 
was  at  different  times  of  his  life  the  defender  and  the 
assailant  of  the  same  institutions,  yet  he  scarcely  seemed 
inconsistent  in  doing  opposite  things,  because  his  method 
and  his  arguments  preserved  the  same  type  and  color 
throughout. 

Any  one  who  had  at  the  beginning  of  his  career  dis- 
cerned in  him  the  capacity  for  such  strange  diversities 
and  contradictions,  would  probably  have  predicted  that 
they  must  wreck  it  by  making  his  puiposes  weak  and 
his  course  erratic.  Such  a  prediction  would  have  proved 
true  of  any  one  with  less  firmness  of  will  and  less  inten- 
sity of  temper.  It  was  the  persistent  heat  and  vehe- 
mence of  his  character,  the  sustained  passion  which  he 
threw  into  the  pursuit  of  the  object  on  which  he  was  for 


358    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

the  moment  bent,  that  fused  these  dissimilar  qualities, 
and  made  them  appear  to  contribute  to  and  to  increase 
the  total  force  which  he  exerted. 

Theories  of  character  based  on  race  differences  are 
dangerous,  because  they  are  so  easy  to  form  and  so  hard 
to  test.  Still,  no  one  denies  that  there  are  qualities  and 
tendencies  generally  found  in  the  minds  of  men  of  cer- 
tain stocks,  just  as  there  are  peculiarities  in  their  faces 
or  in  their  speech.  Mr.  Gladstone  was  born  and  brought 
up  in  Liverpool,  and  always  retained  a  touch  of  Lanca- 
shire accent.  But,  as  he  was  fond  of  saying,  every  drop 
of  blood  in  his  veins  was  Scotch.  His  father  was  a  Low- 
land Scot  from  the  neighborhood  of  Biggar,  in  the  Upper 
Ward  of  Lanarkshire,  where  the  old  yeoman's  dwelling  of 
Gladstanes  —  the  kite's  rock  —  may  still  be  seen.  His 
mother  was  of  Highland  extraction,  by  name  Robertson, 
from  Dingwall,  in  Ross-shire.  Thus  he  was  not  only  a 
Scot,  but  a  Scot  with  a  strong  infusion  of  the  Celtic  ele- 
ment, the  element  whence  the  Scotch  derive  most  of 
what  distinguishes  them  from  the  English.  The  Scot  is 
more  excitable,  more  easily  brought  to  a  glow  of  passion, 
more  apt  to  be  eagerly  absorbed  in  one  thing  at  a  time. 
He  is  also  more  fond  of  abstract  intellectual  effort.  It  is 
not  merely  that  the  taste  for  metaphysical  theology  is 
commoner  in  Scotland  than  in  England,  but  that  the 
Scotch  have  a  stronger  relish  for  general  principles.  They 
like  to  set  out  by  ascertaining  and  defining  such  prin- 
ciples, and  then  to  pursue  a  series  of  logical  deductions 
from  them.  They  are,  therefore,  somewhat  bolder  rea- 
soners  than  the  English,  less  content  to  remain  in  the 
region  of  concrete  facts,  more  eager  to  hasten  on  to  the 
process  of  working  out  a  body  of  speculative  doctrines. 
The  Englishman  is  apt  to  plume  himself  on  being  right 
in  spite  of  logic;  the  Scotchman  delights  to  think  that  it 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  359 

is  through  logic  he  has  reached  his  conclusions,  and  that 
he  can  by  logic  defend  them. 

These  are  qualities  which  Mr.  Gladstone  drew  from 
the  Scottish  blood.  He  had  a  keen  enjoyment  of  the 
processes  of  dialectic.  He  loved  to  get  hold  of  an  abstract 
principle  and  to  derive  all  sorts  of  conclusions  from  it. 
He  was  wont  to  begin  the  discussion  of  a  question  by  lay- 
ing down  two  or  three  sweeping  propositions  covering 
the  subject  as  a  whole,  and  would  then  proceed  to  draw 
from  these  others  which  he  could  apply  to  the  particular 
matter  in  hand.  His  well-stored  memory  and  boundless 
ingenuity  made  this  finding  of  such  general  propositions 
so  easy  a  task  that  a  method  in  itself  agreeable  some- 
times appeared  to  be  carried  to  excess.  He  frequently  ar- 
rived at  conclusions  which  the  judgment  of  the  sober 
auditor  did  not  approve,  because,  although  they  seemed 
to  have  been  legitimately  deduced  from  the  general 
principles  just  enunciated,  they  were  somehow  at  vari- 
ance with  the  plain  teaching  of  the  facts.  At  such  mo- 
ments one  felt  that  the  man  who  was  charming  but  per- 
plexing Englishmen  by  his  subtlety  and  ingenuity  was 
not  himself  an  Englishman  in  mental  quality,  but  had 
the  love  for  abstractions  and  refinements  and  dialectical 
analysis  which  characterizes  the  Scotch  intellect.  He  had 
also  a  large  measure  of  that  warmth  and  vehemence  called 
in  the  sixteenth  century  the  perfervidum  ingenium  Scot- 
orum,  which  belongs  to  the  Scottish  temperament,  and 
particularly  to  the  Celtic  Scot.  He  kindled  quickly,  and, 
when  kindled,  he  shot  forth  a  strong  and  brilliant  flame. 

With  these  Scottish  qualities,  Mr.  Gladstone  was 
brought  up  at  school  and  college  among  Englishmen,  and 
received  at  Oxford,  then  lately  awakened  from  a  long 
torpor,  a  bias  and  tendency  which  never  thereafter 
ceased  to  affect  him.  The  so-called  "Oxford  Movement," 


360    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

which  afterwards  obtained  the  name  of  Tractarianism 
and  carried  Dr.  Newman,  together  with  other  less  fa- 
mous leaders,  on  to  Rome,  had  not  yet  in  1831,  when 
Mr.  Gladstone  won  his  degree  with  double  first-class 
honors,  taken  visible  shape,  or  become,  so  to  speak,  con- 
scious of  its  own  purposes.  But  its  doctrinal  views,  its 
peculiar  vein  of  religious  sentiment,  its  respect  for  an- 
tiquity and  tradition,  its  proneness  to  casuistry,  its  taste 
for  symbolism,  were  already  potent  influences  working 
on  the  more  susceptible  of  the  younger  minds.  On  Mr. 
Gladstone  they  told  with  full  force.  He  became,  and 
never  ceased  to  be,  not  merely  a  High  Churchman,  but 
what  may  be  called  an  Anglo-Catholic  in  his  theology; 
deferential,  not  only  to  ecclesiastical  tradition,  but  to 
the  living  voice  of  the  visible  Church,  respecting  the 
priesthood  as  the  recipients  (if  duly  ordained)  of  a  special 
grace  and  peculiar  powers,  attaching  great  importance 
to  the  sacraments,  feeling  himself  nearer  to  the  Church 
of  Rome,  despite  what  he  deemed  her  corruptions,  than 
to  any  of  the  non-episcopal  Protestant  churches.  Hence- 
forth his  interests  in  life  were  as  much  ecclesiastical  as 
political.  For  a  time  he  desired  to  be  ordained  a  clergy- 
man. Had  this  wish  been  carried  out,  it  can  scarcely  be 
doubted  that  he  would  eventually  have  become  the  lead- 
ing figure  in  the  Church  of  England  and  have  sensibly 
affected  her  recent  history.  The  later  stages  in  his  career 
drew  him  away  from  the  main  current  of  political  opinion 
within  that  church.  He  who  had  been  the  strongest  advo- 
cate of  established  churches  came  to  be  the  leading  agent 
in  the  disestablishment  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  in  Ireland,  and  a  supporter  of  the  policy  of  dis- 
establishment in  Scotland  and  in  Wales.  But  the  color 
which  these  Oxford  years  gave  to  his  mind  and  thoughts 
was  never  obliterated. 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  361 

When  the  brilliant  young  Oxonian  entered  the  House 
of  Commons  at  the  age  of  twenty-three,  Sir  Robert  Peel 
was  leading  the  Tory  party  with  an  authority  and  ability 
rarely  surpassed  in  parliamentary  annals.  Within  two 
years  the  young  man  was  admitted  into  the  short-lived 
Tory  Ministry  of  1834,  and  soon  proved  himself  an  ac- 
tive and  promising  lieutenant  of  the  experienced  chief. 
Peel  was  an  eminently  wary  and  cautious  man,  alive  to 
the  necessity  of  watching  the  signs  of  the  times,  of  study- 
ing and  interpreting  the  changeful  phases  of  public 
opinion.  His  habit  was  to  keep  his  own  counsel,  and 
even  when  he  perceived  that  the  policy  he  had  hitherto 
followed  would  need  to  be  modified,  to  continue  to  use 
guarded  language  and  refuse  to  commit  himself  to 
change  till  he  perceived  that  the  fitting  moment  had 
arrived.  He  was,  moreover,  a  master  of  detail,  slow  to 
propound  a  plan  until  he  had  seen  how  its  outlines  were 
to  be  filled  up  by  appropriate  devices  for  carrying  it  out 
in  practice.  These  qualities  and  habits  of  the  Minister 
profoundly  affected  his  gifted  disciple.  They  became 
part  of  the  texture  of  his  own  political  character;  and  in 
his  case,  as  in  that  of  Peel,  they  sometimes  brought  cen- 
sure upon  him,  as  having  withheld  too  long  from  the 
public  views  or  purposes  which  he  thought  it  unwise  to 
disclose  till  effect  could  promptly  be  given  to  them.  Such 
reserve,  such  a  guarded  attitude  and  conservative  attach- 
ment to  existing  institutions,  were  not  altogether  natural 
to  Mr.  Gladstone's  mind,  and  the  contrast  between 
them  and  some  of  his  other  qualities,  like  the  contrast 
which  ultimately  appeared  between  his  sacerdotal  ten- 
dencies and  his  political  liberalism,  contributed  to  make 
his  character  perplexing  and  to  expose  his  conduct  to 
the  charge  of  inconsistency. 

Mr.  Gladstone  sat  for  sixty-three  years  in  Parliament, 


362    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

and  for  more  than  twenty-six  years  was  the  leader  of  his 
party,  and  therefore  the  central  figure  of  English  poli- 
tics. As  has  been  said,  he  began  as  a  high  Tory,  re- 
mained about  fifteen  years  in  that  camp,  was  then  led  by 
the  split  between  Peel  and  the  protectionists  to  take  up 
an  intermediate  position,  and  finally  was  forced  to  cast 
in  his  lot  with  the  Liberals  —  for  in  England,  as  in 
America,  third  parties  seldom  endure.  No  parliamen- 
tary career  in  English  annals  is  comparable  to  his  for  its 
length  and  variety;  and  of  those  who  saw  its  close  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  there  was  only  one  man,  Mr.  Villiers 
(who  died  in  January,  1898),  who  could  remember  its 
beginning.  He  had  been  opposed  in  1833  to  men  who 
might  have  been  his  grandfathers;  he  was  opposed  in 
1893  to  men  who  might  have  been  his  grandchildren.  It 
took  fourteen  years,  from  1846  to  1860,  to  carry  him 
from  the  Conservative  into  the  Liberal  camp.  It  took 
five  stormy  years  to  bring  him  round  to  Irish  home  rule, 
though  his  mind  was  constantly  occupied  with  the  sub- 
ject from  1880  to  1885;  and  those  who  watched  him 
closely  saw  that  the  process  had  advanced  some  consid- 
erable way  even  in  1881.  And  as  regards  ecclesiastical 
establishments,  having  written  a  book  in  1838,  as  a 
warm  advocate  of  state  churches,  it  was  not  till  1867 
that  he  adopted  the  policy  of  disestablishment  for  Ire- 
land, not  till  1890  that  he  declared  himself  ready  to  apply 
it  in  ^Yales  and  Scotland  also. 

No  great  popular  leader  had  in  him  less  of  the  true 
ring  of  the  demagogue.  He  saw,  of  course,  that  a  states- 
man cannot  oppose  the  popular  will  beyond  a  certain 
point,  and  may  have  to  humor  it  in  order  that  he  may 
direct  it.  Now  and  then,  in  his  later  days,  he  so  far 
yielded  to  his  party  advisers  as  to  express  his  approval  of 
proposals  for  which  he  cared  little  personally.    But  he 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  363 

was  too  self-absorbed,  too  eagerly  interested  in  the  ideas 
that  suited  his  own  cast  of  thought,  to  be  able  to  watch 
and  gauge  the  tendencies  of  the  multitude.  On  several 
occasions  he  announced  a  policy  which  startled  people 
and  gave  a  new  turn  to  the  course  of  events.  But  in  none 
of  these  instances,  and  certainly  not  in  the  three  most 
remarkable  —  his  declarations  against  the  Irish  church 
establishment  in  1868,  against  the  Turks  and  the  tradi- 
tional English  policy  of  supporting  them  in  1876,  and 
in  favor  of  Irish  home  rule  in  1886  —  did  any  popular 
demand  suggest  his  pronouncement.  It  was  the  masses 
who  took  their  view  from  him,  not  he  who  took  his  man- 
date from  the  masses.  In  all  of  these  instances  he  was  at 
the  time  in  Opposition,  and  was  accused  of  having  made 
this  new  departure  for  the  sake  of  recovering  power.  In 
the  two  former  he  prevailed,  and  was  ultimately  admitted 
by  his  more  candid  adversaries  to  have  counselled  wisely. 
In  all  of  them  he  may,  perhaps,  be  censured  for  not  hav- 
ing sooner  perceived,  or  at  any  rate  for  not  having  sooner 
announced,  the  need  for  reform.  But  it  was  very  charac- 
teristic of  him  not  to  give  the  full  strength  of  his  mind  to 
a  question  till  he  felt  that  it  pressed  for  a  solution.  Those 
who  discussed  politics  with  him  were  scarcely  more  struck 
by  the  range  of  his  vision  and  his  power  of  correlating 
principles  and  details,  than  by  his  unwillingness  to  com- 
mit himself  on  matters  whose  decision  he  could  postpone. 
Reticence  and  caution  were  sometimes  carried  too  far, 
not  merely  because  they  exposed  him  to  misconstruction, 
but  because  they  withheld  from  his  party  the  guidance 
it  needed.  This  was  true  in  all  the  three  instances  just 
mentioned;  and  in  the  last  of  them  his  reticence  prob- 
ably contributed  to  the  separation  from  him  of  some  of 
his  former  colleagues.  Nor  did  he  always  rightly  divine 
the  popular  mind.   Absorbed  in  his  own  financial  views, 


364    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

he  omitted  to  note  the  change  that  had  been  in  progress 
between  1862  and  1874,  and  thus  his  proposal  in  the  lat- 
ter year  to  extinguish  the  income  tax  fell  completely  flat. 
He  often  failed  to  perceive  how  much  the  credit  of  his 
party  was  suffering  from  the  belief,  quite  groundless  so 
far  as  he  personally  was  concerned,  that  his  Government 
was  indifferent  to  what  are  called  Imperial  interests,  the 
interests  of  England  outside  England.  But  he  always 
thought  for  himself,  and  never  stooped  to  flatter  the 
prejudices  or  inflame  the  passions  of  any  class  in  the  com- 
munity. 

Though  the  power  of  reading  the  signs  of  the  times  and 
moving  the  mind  of  the  nation  as  a  whole  may  be  now 
more  essential  to  an  English  statesman  than  the  skill 
which  manages  a  legislature  or  holds  together  a  cabinet, 
that  skill  counts  for  much,  and  must  continue  to  do  so 
while  the  House  of  Commons  remains  the  supreme  govern- 
ing authority  of  the  country.  A  man  can  hardly  reach 
high  place,  and  certainly  cannot  retain  high  place,  with- 
out possessing  this  kind  of  art.  Mr.  Gladstone  was  at  one 
time  thought  to  want  it.  In  1864,  when  Lord  Palmer- 
ston's  end  was  evidently  near,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  had 
shown  himself  the  most  brilliant  and  capable  man 
among  the  Liberal  ministers  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
people  speculated  about  the  succession  to  the  headship 
of  the  party;  and  the  wiseacres  of  the  day  were  never 
tired  of  repeating  that  Mr.  Gladstone  could  not  possibly 
lead  the  House  of  Commons.  He  wanted  tact  (they  said), 
he  was  too  excitable,  too  impulsive,  too  much  absorbed 
in  his  own  ideas,  too  unversed  in  the  arts  by  which  in- 
dividuals are  conciliated.  But  when,  after  twenty-five 
years  of  his  unquestioned  reign,  the  time  for  his  own 
departure  drew  nigh,  men  asked  how  the  Liberal  party 
of  the  House  of  Commons  would  ever  hold  together  after 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  365 

it  had  lost  a  leader  of  such  consummate  capacity.  Sel- 
dom has  a  prediction  been  more  utterly  falsified  than 
that  of  the  AMiig  critics  of  1864.  They  had  grown  so 
accustomed  to  Palmerston's  way  of  handling  the  House 
as  to  forget  that  a  man  might  succeed  by  quite  different 
methods.  And  they  forgot  also  that  the  man  may  have 
many  defects  and  yet  in  spite  of  them  be  incomparably 
the  fittest  for  a  great  place. 

Of  Mr.  Gladstone's  oratory,  something  must  now  be 
said.  By  it  he  rose  to  fame  and  power,  as,  indeed,  by  it 
most  English  statesmen  have  risen,  save  those  to  whom 
wealth  and  rank  and  family  connections  have  given  a 
sort  of  presumptive  claim  to  high  office,  like  the  Caven- 
dishes and  the  Russells,  the  Cecils  and  the  Bentincks. 
And  for  many  years,  during  which  Mr.  Gladstone  was 
distrusted  as  a  statesman  because,  while  he  had  ceased 
to  be  a  Tory,  he  had  not  fully  become  a  Liberal,  his  elo- 
quence was  the  main,  one  might  almost  say  the  sole, 
source  of  his  influence. 

The  permanent  reputation  of  an  orator  depends  upon 
two  things,  the  witness  of  contemporaries  to  the  impres- 
sion produced  upon  them,  and  the  written  or  printed  — 
we  may,  perhaps,  be  soon  able  to  say  the  phonographed 
—  record  of  his  speeches.  Few  are  the  famous  speakers 
who  would  be  famous  if  they  were  tried  by  this  latter  test 
alone,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  was  not  one  of  them.  It  is  only 
by  a  rare  combination  of  gifts  that  one  who  speaks  with 
so  much  readiness,  force,  and  brilliance  as  to  charm  his 
listeners,  is  also  able  to  deliver  such  valuable  thoughts 
in  such  choice  words  that  posterity  will  read  them  as 
literature.  Some  few  of  the  ancient  orators  did  this;  but 
we  seldom  know  how  far  those  of  their  speeches  which 
have  been  preserved  are  the  speeches  which  they  actu- 
ally delivered.  Among  moderns,  some  French  preachers, 


366    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

Edmund  Burke,  Macaulay,  and  Daniel  Webster  are  per- 
haps the  only  speakers  whose  discourses  have  passed 
into  classics  and  find  new  generations  of  readers.  Twenty 
years  hence  Mr.  Gladstone's  will  not  be  read  except,  of 
course,  by  historians.  They  are  too  long,  too  diffuse,  too 
minute  in  their  handling  of  details,  too  elaborately  quali- 
fied in  their  enunciation  of  general  principles.  They  con- 
tain few  epigrams,  and  few  of  those  weighty  thoughts 
put  into  telling  phrases  which  the  Greeks  called  jvcbfiac. 
The  style,  in  short,  is  not  sufficiently  rich  or  finished  to 
give  a  perpetual  interest  to  matters  whose  practical  im- 
portance has  vanished.  The  same  oblivion  has  overtaken 
all  but  a  very  few  of  the  best  things  of  Grattan,  Pitt, 
Canning,  Plunket,  Brougham,  Peel,  Bright.  It  may,  in- 
deed, be  said  —  and  the  examples  of  Burke  and  Macau- 
lay  show  that  this  is  no  paradox  —  that  the  speakers 
whom  posterity  most  enjoys  are  rarely  those  who  most 
affected  the  audiences  that  listened  to  them. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Gladstone  be  judged  by 
the  impression  he  made  on  his  own  time,  his  place  will 
be  high  in  the  front  rank.  His  speeches  were  neither  so 
concisely  telling  as  Mr.  Bright's  nor  so  finished  in  dic- 
tion ;  but  no  other  man  among  his  contemporaries  — 
neither  Lord  Derby  nor  Mr.  Lowe  nor  Mr.  Disraeli  nor 
Bishop  Wilberforce  nor  Bishop  Magee  —  deserved  com- 
parison with  him.  And  he  rose  superior  to  Mr.  Bright 
himself  in  readiness,  in  variety  of  knowledge,  in  persua- 
sive ingenuity.  Mr.  Bright  required  time  for  preparation, 
and  was  always  more  successful  in  alarming  his  adver- 
saries and  stimulating  his  friends  than  in  either  instruct- 
ing or  convincing  anybody.  Mr.  Gladstone  could  do  all 
these  four  things,  and  could  do  them  at  an  hour's  notice, 
so  vast  and  well-ordered  was  the  arsenal  of  his  mind. 
His  oratory  had  many  conspicuous  merits.  There  was  a 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  367 

lively  imagination,  which  enabled  him  to  relieve  even 
dull  matter  by  pleasing  figures,  together  with  a  large 
command  of  quotations  and  illustrations.  There  were 
remarkable  powers  of  sarcasm  —  powers,  however,  which 
he  rarely  used,  preferring  the  summer  lightning  of  banter 
to  the  thunderbolt  of  invective.  There  was  admirable 
lucidity  and  accuracy  in  exposition.  There  was  great 
skill  in  the  disposition  and  marshalling  of  his  arguments, 
and  finally  —  a  gift  now  almost  lost  in  England  —  there 
was  a  wonderful  variety  and  grace  of  appropriate  gesture. 
But  above  and  beyond  everything  else  which  enthralled 
the  listener,  there  were  four  qualities,  two  specially  con- 
spicuous in  the  substance  of  his  eloquence  —  inventive- 
ness and  elevation;  two  not  less  remarkable  in  his  man- 
ner— force  in  the  delivery,  expressive  modulation  in  the 
voice. 

The  note  of  genuineness  and  spontaneity  which 
marked  the  substance  of  his  speeches  was  no  less  con- 
spicuous in  their  delivery.  Nothing  could  be  more  easy 
and  graceful  than  his  manner  on  ordinary  occasions. 
His  expository  discourses,  such  as  those  with  which  he 
introduced  a  complicated  bill  or  unfolded  a  financial 
statement,  were  models  of  their  kind,  not  only  for  lucid- 
ity, but  for  the  pleasant  smoothness,  equally  free  from 
monotony  and  from  abruptness,  with  which  the  stream 
of  speech  flowed  from  his  lips.  The  task  was  performed 
so  well  that  people  thought  it  an  easy  task  till  they  saw 
how  immeasurably  inferior  were  the  performances  of  two 
subsequent  Chancellors  of  the  Exchequer  so  able  in  their 
respective  ways  as  Mr.  Lowe  and  Mr.  Goschen.  But 
when  an  occasion  arrived  which  quickened  men's  pulses, 
and  particularly  when  some  sudden  storm  burst  on  the 
House  of  Commons  —  a  place  where  the  waves  rise  as 
fast  as  in  a  mountain  lake  under  a  squall  rushing  down  a 


368    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

glen  —  the  vehemence  of  his  feeling  found  expression  in 
the  fire  of  his  eye  and  the  resistless  strength  of  his  words. 
His  utterance  did  not  grow  swifter,  nor  did  the  key  of 
his  voice  rise,  as  passion  raises  and  sharpens  it  in  most 
men.  But  the  measured  force  with  which  every  sentence 
was  launched,  like  a  shell  hurtling  through  the  air,  the 
concentrated  intensity  of  his  look,  as  he  defied  antago- 
nists in  front  and  swept  his  glance  over  the  ranks  of  his 
supporters  around  and  behind  him,  had  a  startling  and 
thrilling  power  which  no  other  Englishman  could  exert, 
and  which  no  Englishman  had  exerted  since  the  days  of 
Pitt  and  Fox.  The  whole  proud,  bold,  ardent  nature  of 
the  man  seemed  to  flash  out,  and  one  almost  forgot  what 
the  lips  said  in  admiration  of  the  towering  personality. 

Though  Mr.  Gladstone's  oratory  wTas  a  main  source 
of  his  power,  both  in  Parliament  and  over  the  people, 
the  effort  of  his  enemies  to  represent  him  as  a  mere 
rhetorician  will  seem  absurd  to  the  historian  who  re- 
views his  whole  career.  If  the  memory  of  his  oratorical 
triumphs  were  to  pass  completely  away,  he  would  deserve 
to  be  remembered  in  respect  of  the  mark  he  left  upon 
the  British  statute-book  and  of  the  changes  he  wrought 
both  in  the  Constitution  of  his  country  and  in  her  Euro- 
pean policy.  To  describe  the  acts  he  carried  would 
almost  be  to  write  the  history  of  recent  British  legisla- 
tion; to  pass  judgment  upon  their  merits  would  be 
foreign  to  the  scope  of  this  article. 

His  action  in  the  field  of  foreign  policy,  though  it  was 
felt  only  at  intervals,  was  on  several  occasions  momen- 
tous, and  has  left  abiding  results  in  European  history. 
In  1851,  he  being  then  still  a  Tory,  his  powerful  pamphlet 
against  the  Bourbon  government  of  Naples,  and  the 
sympathy  he  subsequently  avowed  with  the  national 
movement  in  Italy,  gave  that  movement  a  new  standing 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  369 

in  Europe  by  powerfully  recommending  it  to  English 
opinion.  In  1870  the  prompt  action  of  his  Government, 
in  concluding  a  treaty  for  the  neutrality  of  Belgium  on 
the  outbreak  of  the  war  between  France  and  Germany, 
saved  Belgium  from  being  drawn  into  the  strife.  In 
1871,  by  concluding  the  treaty  of  Washington,  which 
provided  for  the  settlement  of  the  Alabama  claims,  he 
not  only  asserted  a  principle  of  the  utmost  value,  but 
delivered  England  from  what  would  have  been,  in  case 
of  her  being  at  war  with  any  European  power,  a  danger 
fatal  to  her  ocean  commerce.  And  in  1876,  the  vigorous 
attack  he  made  on  the  Turks  after  the  Bulgarian  mas- 
sacre roused  an  intense  feeling  in  England,  so  turned  the 
current  of  opinion  that  Disraeli's  ministry  was  forced 
to  leave  the  Sultan  to  his  fate,  and  thus  became  the 
cause  of  the  deliverance  of  Bulgaria,  Eastern  Rumelia, 
Bosnia,  and  Thessaly  from  Mussulman  tyranny.  Few 
English  statesmen  have  equally  earned  the  gratitude  of 
the  oppressed. 

Such  a  record  is  the  best  proof  of  the  capacity  for 
initiative  which  belonged  to  him,  and  in  which  men  of 
high  oratorical  gifts  have  often  been  wanting.  In  the 
Neapolitan  case,  in  the  Alabama  case,  in  the  Bulgarian 
case,  no  less  than  in  the  adoption  of  the  policy  of  a  sepa- 
rate legislature  and  executive  for  Ireland,  he  acted  from 
his  own  convictions,  with  no  suggestion  of  encourage- 
ment from  his  party;  and  in  the  last  instances — those  of 
Ireland  and  of  Bulgaria  —  he  took  a  course  which  seemed 
to  the  English  political  world  so  novel  and  even  startling 
that  no  ordinary  statesman  would  have  ventured  on  it. 

His  courage  was  indeed  one  of  the  most  striking  parts 
of  his  character.  It  was  not  the  rashness  of  an  impetuous 
nature,  for,  impetuous  as  he  was  when  stirred  by  some 
sudden  excitement,  he  was  wary  and  cautious  whenever 


370    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

he  took  a  deliberate  survey  of  the  conditions  that  sur- 
rounded him.  It  was  the  proud  self-confidence  of  a 
strong  character,  which  was  willing  to  risk  fame  and 
fortune  in  pursuing  a  course  it  had  once  resolved  upon  — 
a  character  which  had  faith  in  its  own  conclusions,  and 
in  the  success  of  a  cause  consecrated  by  principle  —  a 
character  which  obstacles  did  not  affright  or  deter,  but 
rather  roused  to  a  higher  combative  energy.  Few  Eng- 
lish statesmen  have  done  anything  so  bold  as  was  Mr. 
Gladstone's  declaration  for  Irish  home  rule  in  1886.  He 
took  not  only  his  political  power,  but  the  fame  and  credit 
of  his  whole  past  life,  in  his  hand  when  he  set  out  on  this 
new  journey  at  seventy-seven  years  of  age;  for  it  was 
quite  possible  that  the  great  bulk  of  his  party  might 
refuse  to  follow  him,  and  he  be  left  exposed  to  derision 
as  the  chief  of  an  insignificant  group.  It  turned  out  that 
the  great  bulk  of  the  party  did  follow  him,  though  many 
of  the  most  influential  and  socially  important  refused  to 
do  so.  But  neither  Mr.  Gladstone  nor  any  one  else  could 
have  foretold  this  when  his  intentions  were  first  an- 
nounced. 

The  essential  dignity  of  his  nature  was  never  better 
seen  than  during  the  last  few  years  of  his  life,  after  he 
had  retired  (in  1894)  from  Parliament  and  public  life. 
He  indulged  in  no  vain  regrets,  nor  was  there  any  foun- 
dation for  the  rumors,  so  often  circulated,  that  he  thought 
of  reentering  the  arena  of  strife.  He  spoke  with  no  bit- 
terness of  those  who  had  opposed,  and  sometimes  foiled, 
him  in  the  past.  He  gave  vent  to  no  disparaging  criti- 
cisms on  those  who  from  time  to  time  filled  the  place 
that  had  been  his  in  the  government  of  the  country 
or  the  leadership  of  his  party.  Although  his  opinion  on 
current  questions  was  frequently  solicited,  he  scarcely 
ever  allowed  it  to  be  known,  and  never  himself  addressed 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  371 

the  nation,  except  on  behalf  of  what  he  deemed  a  sacred 
cause,  altogether  above  party —  the  discharge  by  Britain 
of  her  duty  to  the  victims  of  the  Turk.  As  soon  as  an 
operation  for  cataract  had  enabled  him  to  read  or  write 
for  seven  hours  a  day,  he  devoted  himself  with  his  old 
ardor  to  the  preparation  of  an  edition  of  Bishop  Butler's 
works,  resumed  his  multifarious  reading,  and  filled  up 
the  interstices  of  his  working  time  with  studies  on  Homer 
which  he  had  been  previously  unable  to  complete.  No 
trace  of  the  moroseness  of  old  age  appeared  in  his  man- 
ners or  his  conversation,  nor  did  he,  though  profoundly 
grieved  at  some  of  the  events  which  he  witnessed,  and 
owning  himself  disappointed  at  the  slow  advance  made 
by  some  causes  dear  to  him,  appear  less  hopeful  than  in 
earlier  days  of  the  general  progress  of  the  world,  or  less 
confident  in  the  beneficent  power  of  freedom  to  promote 
the  happiness  of  his  country.  The  stately  simplicity 
which  had  been  the  note  of  his  private  life  seemed  more 
beautiful  than  ever  in  this  quiet  evening  of  a  long  and 
sultry  day.  His  intellectual  powers  were  unimpaired;  his 
thirst  for  knowledge  undiminished.  But  a  placid  stillness 
had  fallen  upon  him  and  his  household;  and  in  seeing  the 
tide  of  his  life  begin  slowly  to  ebb,  one  thought  of  the 
lines  of  his  illustrious  contemporary  and  friend  — 

"  such  a  tide  as  moving  seems  asleep, 
Too  full  for  sound  or  foam, 
When  that  which  drew  from  out  the  boundless  deep 
Turns  again  home." 

Of  how  few  who  have  lived  for  more  than  sixty  years  in 
the  full  sight  of  their  countrymen,  and  have  been  as 
party  leaders  exposed  to  angry  and  sometimes  dishonest 
criticism,  can  it  be  said  that  there  stands  on  record 
against  them  no  malignant  word  and  no  vindictive  act! 
This  was  due  in  Mr.  Gladstone,  not  perhaps  entirely  to 


372    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

natural  sweetness  of  disposition,  but  rather  to  self-con- 
trol, and  to  a  certain  largeness  and  dignity  of  soul  which 
would  not  condescend  to  anything  mean  or  petty.  Nor 
should  it  be  forgotten  that  the  perfectly  happy  life  which 
he  led  at  home,  cared  for  in  everything  by  a  devoted 
wife,  kept  far  from  him  those  domestic  troubles  which 
have  soured  the  temper  and  embittered  the  judgment  of 
not  a  few  famous  men.  Reviewing  his  whole  career,  and 
summing  up  the  impressions  and  recollections  of  those 
who  knew  him  best,  this  dignity  is  the  feature  which 
dwells  most  in  the  mind,  as  the  outline  of  some  majestic 
Alp  moves  one  from  afar  when  all  the  lesser  beauties  of 
glen  and  wood,  of  craig  and  glacier,  have  faded  in  the 
distance.  As  elevation  was  the  note  of  his  oratory,  so 
was  magnanimity  the  note  of  his  character. 

The  favorite  Greek  maxim  that  no  man  can  be  called 
happy  till  his  life  is  ended  must,  in  the  case  of  statesmen, 
be  extended  to  warn  us  from  the  attempt  to  fix  any  one's 
place  in  history  till  a  generation  has  arisen  to  whom  he 
is  a  mere  name,  not  a  familiar  figure  to  be  loved,  opposed, 
or  hated.  Few  reputations  made  in  politics  keep  so  far 
green  and  fresh  that  men  continue  to  read  and  write  and 
speculate  about  the  person  when  those  who  can  remem- 
ber him  living  have  departed.  Out  of  all  the  men  who 
have  played  a  leading  part  in  English  public  life  in  the 
present  century  there  are  but  seven  or  eight  —  Pitt, 
Fox,  Canning,  Wellington,  Peel,  O'Connell,  Disraeli, 
perhaps  Melbourne  and  Brougham  —  who  still  excite 
our  curiosity.  The  great  poet  or  the  great  artist  lives 
longer  —  indeed,  he  lives  as  long  as  his  books  or  his 
pictures;  the  statesman,  like  the  musician  or  the  actor, 
begins  to  be  forgotten  so  soon  as  his  voice  is  still,  unless 
he  has  so  dominated  the  men  of  his  own  time,  and  made 
himself  a  part  of  his  country's  history,  that  his  personal 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  373 

character  becomes  a  leading  factor  in  the  course  which 
events  took.  Tried  by  this  test,  Mr.  Gladstone's  fame 
seems  destined  to  last.  His  eloquence  will  soon  become 
merely  a  tradition,  for  his  printed  speeches  do  not  pre- 
serve its  charm.  His  main  acts  of  policy,  foreign  and 
domestic,  will  have  to  be  judged  by  their  still  unborn 
consequences.  If  his  books  continue  to  be  read,  it  will 
be  rather  because  they  are  his  than  in  respect  of  any 
permanent  contribution  they  have  made  to  knowledge. 
But  whoever  follows  the  annals  of  England  during  the 
memorable  years  from  1843  to  1894  will  meet  his  name 
on  almost  every  page,  will  feel  how  great  must  have 
been  the  force  of  an  intellect  that  could  so  interpenetrate 
the  events  of  its  time,  and  will  seek  to  know  something 
of  the  wonderful  figure  that  rose  always  conspicuous 
above  the  struggling  throng. 

There  is  a  passage  in  the  "Odyssey"  where  the  seer 
Theoclymenus,  in  describing  a  vision  of  death,  says: 
"The  sun  has  perished  out  of  heaven."  To  Englishmen, 
Mr.  Gladstone  has  been  like  a  sun  which,  sinking  slowly, 
has  grown  larger  as  he  sank,  and  filled  the  sky  with  radi- 
ance even  while  he  trembled  on  the  verge  of  the  horizon. 
There  were  able  men,  and  famous  men,  but  there  was  no 
one  comparable  to  him  in  power  and  fame  and  honor. 
Now  he  is  gone.  The  piercing  eye  is  dim,  and  the  mellow 
voice  is  silent,  and  the  light  has  died  out  of  the  sky. 


HERBERT  SPENCER 

By  William  James 

(December  10,  1903) 

In  the  death  of  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  England  has  to 
deplore  the  loss  of  one  of  the  two  or  three  most  influen- 
tial thinkers  whom  she  has  given  to  our  generation.  In 
awarding  "points"  to  the  various  candidates  for  immor- 
tality in  the  "Pantheon  of  Philosophy,"  few  are  entitled 
to  a  higher  mark  than  Mr.  Spencer  on  the  score  of  posi- 
tive and  systematic  form.  Whatever  greatness  this  qual- 
ity imports  —  and  surely  it  is  as  rare  and  great  as  any 
—  belongs  to  Mr.  Spencer  in  the  fullest  measure.  Who, 
since  he  wrote,  is  not  vividly  able  to  conceive  of  the 
world  as  a  thing  evolved  from  a  primitive  fire  mist,  by 
progressive  integrations  and  differentiations,  and  in- 
creases in  heterogeneity  and  coherence  of  texture  and 
organization?  Who  can  fail  to  think  of  life,  both  bodily 
and  mental,  as  a  set  of  ever-changing  ways  of  meeting 
the  "environment"?  Who  has  not  suddenly  at  some 
time  grown  grave  at  the  thought  that  the  parents'  sinful 
or  virtuous  habits  are  inherited  by  the  children,  and 
destined  to  accumulate  from  generation  to  generation 
while  the  race  endures? 

AYhen  one  tries,  however,  to  give  a  nearer  account  of 
Herbert  Spencer's  genius,  and  a  more  exact  appraisal  of 
his  importance  in  the  history  of  thought,  one  finds  the 
task  a  hard  one,  so  unique  and  idiosyncratic  was  the 
temperament  of  the  man;  and,  with  all  the  breadth  of 
ground  which  his  work  covered,  so  narrow  and  angular 
was  the  outline  which  he  personally  showed.  A  pen  like 
Carlyle's  might  convey  a  living  impression  of  all  the 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  375 

pluses  and  minuses  which  Mr.  Spencer's  character  em- 
bodied, but  a  writer  like  the  present  critic  must  surely 
fail.  Carlyle,  himself,  indeed,  had  he  ever  tried  the  task, 
would  have  failed.  With  his  so  different  temperament, 
the  littlenesses  of  the  personage  would  have  tempted 
his  descriptive  powers  exclusively,  and  the  elements  of 
greatness  would  have  got  scant  justice  from  his  pen.  As 
a  rule,  all  people  in  whom  a  genius  like  Carlyle's  raises  a 
responsive  thrill,  find  something  strangely  exasperating 
in  the  atmosphere  of  Spencer's  mind :  it  seems  to  them  so 
fatally  lacking  in  geniality,  humor,  picturesqueness,  and 
poetry,  and  so  explicit,  so  mechanical,  so  flat  in  the  pano- 
rama which  it  gives  of  life.  Nevertheless,  the  fact  re- 
mains that  long  before  any  of  his  contemporaries  had 
seized  its  universal  import,  he  grasped  a  great,  light-giv- 
ing truth  —  the  truth  of  evolution;  grasped  it  so  that  it 
became  bone  of  his  bone  and  flesh  of  his  flesh,  and,  with  a 
pertinacity  of  which  the  history  of  successful  thought 
gives  few  examples,  applied  it  to  the  whole  of  life,  down 
to  the  minutest  details  of  the  most  various  sciences.  And 
how,  one  may  well  ask,  is  profundity  and  the  genuine 
"spirit  of  prophecy"  ever  to  be  shown  in  a  man,  if  not 
by  fruits  like  these? 

Moreover,  although  Spencer's  intellect  is  essentially 
of  the  deductive  and  a  priori  order,  starting  from  uni- 
versal abstract  principles  and  thence  proceeding  down  to 
facts,  what  strikes  one  more  than  anything  else  in  his 
writings  is  the  enormous  number  of  facts  from  every 
conceivable  quarter  which  he  brings  to  his  support,  and 
the  unceasing  study  of  minutest  particulars  which  he  is 
able  to  keep  up.  No  "Baconian"  philosopher,  denying 
himself  the  use  of  a  priori  principles,  has  ever  filled  his 
pages  with  half  as  many  facts  as  this  strange  species  of 
apriorist  can  show.    This  unflagging  and  profuse  com- 


376    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

mand  of  facts  is  what  gives  such  peculiar  weightiness  to 
Mr.  Spencer's  manner  of  presenting  even  the  smallest 
topics.  Some  of  his  "Essays"  have  a  really  monumental 
character  from  this  cause.    "Manners  and  Fashion," 
"The  Origin  of  Laughter,"  "Illogical  Geology,"  and  the 
reviews  of  Bain's  "Emotions  and  Will"   and  Owen's 
"Archetype  of  the  Vertebrate  Skeleton,"  immediately 
occur  to  the  mind  as  examples.    In  all  his  writings  on 
social  morals,  from  "Social  Statics"  to  "The  Man  versus 
the  State,"  the  same  quality  is  most  impressively  shown. 
Yet,  with  this  matchless  knowledge  of  certain  sets  of 
facts,  one  may  hear  it  plausibly  argued  that  Spencer  is 
not  a  "widely  informed"  man  in  the  vulgar  acceptation 
of  the  term.    He  shows,  that  is,  small  signs  of  desultory 
curiosity.    His  command,  e.g.,  of  foreign  languages  is 
small,  and  in  the  history  of  philosophy  he  is  obviously 
unversed.    His  facts,  in  short,  seem  all  collected  for  a 
purpose;  those  which  help  the  purpose  are  never  forgot- 
ten, those  which  are  alien  to  it  have  never  caught  his  eye. 
Mr.   Spencer's   attitude   towards   religion,    again,    is 
slightly  paradoxical.  Few  men  have  paid  it  more  sincere 
explicit  respect;  and  the  part  called  "The  Unknowable" 
of  his  "First  Principles"  celebrates  the  ultimate  mys- 
teriousness  of  things,  and  the  existence  of  a  Supreme 
Reality  behind  the  veil,  in  terms  whose  emphatic  charac- 
ter it  is  hard  elsewhere  to  match.   Yet  on  the  whole  he 
passes,  and  we  imagine  passes  rightly,  for  an  irreligious 
philosopher.    His  metaphysical  "Absolute"  is  too  in- 
effable to  become  active  in  the  system,  and  an  absolute 
physics  forthwith  takes  its  place.  The  mystery  of  things, 
instead  of  being  "omnipresent,"  is  all  neatly  swept  to- 
gether into  this  one  chapter,  and  then  dismissed  with  an 
affectionate  good-bye,  while  all  the  particular  mysteries 
which  later  present  themselves  are  quickly  explained 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  377 

away;  Life  being  but  complicated  mechanism,  and  Con- 
sciousness only  physical  force  "transformed,"  etc.,  etc. 
In  Mr.  Spencer's  heroic  defence  of  individualism  against 
socialism  and  the  general  encroachment  of  the  State  there 
is  a  similar  seeming  incoherence,  so  marked  that  one  can- 
not help  suspecting  his  thought  to  have  started  from  two 
independent  facts,  and  to  be  faithful  to  two  ideals. 

The  first  one  was  the  old  English  ideal  of  individual 
liberty,  culminating  in  the  doctrine  of  laissez  faire,  for 
which  the  book  "Social  Statics,"  published  in  1851,  was 
so  striking  a  plea.  The  second  was  the  theory  of  uni- 
versal evolution,  which  seems  to  have  taken  possession 
of  Mr.  Spencer  in  the  decade  which  ensued.  The  Spen- 
cerian  law  of  evolution  is  essentially  statistical.  Its  "in- 
tegrations," "differentiations,"  etc.,  are  names  for  de- 
scribing results  manifested  in  collections  of  units,  and  the 
laws  of  the  latter's  individual  action  are,  in  the  main  and 
speaking  broadly,  hardly  considered  at  all.  The  fate  of 
the  individual  fact  is  swallowed  up  in  that  of  the  aggre- 
gate total.  And  this  is  the  impression  (unless  our  memory 
betrays  us)  which  Mr.  Spencer's  dealings  with  the  indi- 
vidual man  in  society  always  give  us,  so  long  as  the  gen- 
eral description  of  the  process  of  evolution  is  what  he  has 
in  hand.  He  denies  free  will,  as  a  matter  of  course;  he 
despises  hero-worship  and  the  tendency  to  ascribe  social 
changes  to  individual  initiative  rather  than  to  "general 
conditions,"  and  in  every  way  tends  to  minimize  the 
particular  concrete  man.  Society  drags  the  unit  along  in 
its  fatal  tow.  Yet  in  the  political  writings  of  Mr.  Spencer, 
with  their  intense  and  absolute  reliance  on  individuals, 
we  find  the  very  opposite  of  this.  Deeper  students  than 
we  are  may  see  the  point  in  his  system  where  these  two 
streams  of  tendency  unite.  To  us  they  seem,  not  perhaps 
incompatible,  but  at  least  detached. 


378    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

To  the  present  critic,  the  ethical  and  political  part  of 
Mr.  Spencer's  writings  seems  the  most  impressive  and 
likely  to  endure.  The  "Biology,"  the  "Psychology,"  the 
"Sociology,"  even  were  they  abler  than  they  are,  must 
soon  become  obsolete  books;  but  the  antique  spirit  of 
English  individualism  is  a  factor  in  human  life  less 
changeable  than  the  face  of  the  sciences,  and  such  ex- 
pressions of  it  as  Spencer  has  given  will  probably  long 
deserve  to  be  read.  The  "Data  of  Ethics"  is  unques- 
tionably the  most  valuable  single  part  of  the  "Synthetic 
Philosophy,"  not  for  the  reason  that  it  makes  ethics  for 
the  first  time  "scientific"  (although  this  was  probably 
its  chief  merit  in  its  author's  eyes),  but  because  it  gives 
voice  with  singular  energy  to  one  man's  ideals  concern- 
ing human  life.  Ideals  as  manly,  as  humane,  as  broadly 
inclusive,  and  as  forcibly  expressed  are  always  a  force  in 
the  world's  destinies.  The  "Data  of  Ethics"  will  there- 
fore long  continue  to  be  read. 

The  "Principles  of  Biology"  and  of  "Psychology"  are 
already  somewhat  out  of  date.  Spencer's  heroic  attempt 
mechanically  to  explain  the  genesis  of  living  forms  is 
altogether  too  coarsely  carried  out  in  the  former  book; 
and  the  problems  of  reproduction  and  heredity  are  com- 
plicated to-day  with  elements  of  which  he  could  know 
nothing  when  he  wrote.  Of  the  "Psychology,"  it  may 
be  further  said  that  not  much  remains  that  is* of  value 
beyond  the  general  conception,  supported  by  many  ap- 
plications, that  the  mind  grew  up  in  relation  to  its  en- 
vironment, and  that  the  two  cannot  be  studied  apart  — 
a  conception  that  sounded  decidedly  more  original  in  the 
fifties  and  sixties  than  it  does  now.  The  "Sociology" 
has  probably  a  longer  lease  of  life.  It  is  more  recent,  and 
must  long  be  valued  as  a  vast  collection  of  well-arranged 
anthropological  facts.   As  a  chapter  in  the  "System  of 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  379 

Philosophy,"  its  value  is  almost  evanescent,  for  the  au- 
thor's habit  of  periodically  pointing  out  how  well  the 
phenomena  illustrate  his  law  of  evolution  seems  quite 
perfunctory  and  formal  when  applied  to  social  facts,  so 
strained  and  unnatural  is  it  to  conceive  of  these  as  me- 
chanical changes  in  which  matter  is  integrated  and  mo- 
tion dispersed.  It  is  probable  —  strange  irony  of  fate ! 
— that  the  book  called  "  First  Principles,"  although  from  a 
strict  point  of  view  it  is  far  more  vulnerable  than  anything 
its  author  ever  wrote,  is  the  work  by  which  the  "  Synthetic 
Philosophy  "  will  remain  best  known  to  the  reading  world. 
This,  however,  is  very  likely  as  it  should  be.  A  man 
like  Spencer  can  afford  to  be  judged,  not  by  his  infallibil- 
ity in  details,  but  by  the  bravery  of  his  attempt.  He 
sought  to  see  truth  as  a  whole.  He  brought  us  back  to 
the  old  ideal  of  philosophy,  which  since  Locke's  time  had 
well  nigh  taken  flight;  the  ideal,  namely,  of  a  "com- 
pletely unified  knowledge,"  into  which  the  physical  and 
mental  worlds  should  enter  on  equal  terms.  This  was 
the  original  Greek  ideal  of  philosophy,  to  which  men 
surely  must  return.  Spencer  has  been  likened  to  Aris- 
totle. But  he  presents  far  more  analogies  to  Descartes, 
whose  mechanical  theory  of  evolution  swept  over  his  age 
as  Spencer's  sweeps  over  ours.  And  although  Spencer 
can  show  no  such  triumphs  of  detail  as  Descartes's  dis- 
coveries of  analytical  geometry,  of  dioptrics,  of  reflex 
action,  and  of  perception  by  the  eye,  his  moral  character 
inspires  an  infinitely  greater  sympathy  than  that  of  the 
earlier  philosopher.  Descartes's  life  was  absolutely  ego- 
tistic, and  he  was  basely  servile  to  the  powers  that  be. 
Mr.  Spencer's  faculties  were  all  devoted  to  the  service  of 
mankind,  and  few  men  can  have  lived  whose  personal 
conduct  unremittingly  trod  so  close  upon  the  heels  of 
their  ideal. 


DANIEL  COIT  GILMAN 

By  Fabian  Franklin 

(October  22,  1908) 

The  great  achievement  with  which  the  name  of 
President  Gilman  will  always  be  chiefly  associated  is 
that  of  having  naturalized  in  America  the  idea  of  a  true 
university.  It  would  be  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  point 
to  any  other  instance  in  which  a  fundamental  advance 
in  the  aims  of  the  higher  education  in  a  great  nation  has 
been  so  clearly  identified  with  the  work  of  one  man.  To 
say  this  is  not  to  claim  for  Mr.  Gilman  any  great  origi- 
nality of  conception,  on  the  one  hand,  or,  on  the  other 
hand,  any  monopoly  in  the  work  of  shaping  the  methods 
by  which  the  ideas  underlying  the  creation  of  the  Johns 
Hopkins  University  were  brought  into  definite  and  con- 
crete form.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  the  time  was  ripe 
for  the  great  forward  step  that  was  taken  in  Baltimore 
in  1876;  vague  aspirations  in  that  direction  existed  in  a 
number  of  places,  and  fragmentary  efforts  toward  higher 
university  work  were  made  here  and  there,  by  some  ex- 
ceptionally gifted  or  exceptionally  equipped  professor  in 
one  or  another  of  our  leading  institutions  of  learning. 
But  there  is  no  telling  how  long  a  time  the  actual  ripen- 
ing might  have  required  if  it  had  been  left  to  the  gradual 
increase  of  these  sporadic  efforts,  which  had  no  syste- 
matic support,  and  which  were  not  even  recognized,  by 
any  but  the  merest  handful  of  men,  as  pointing  toward 
any  broad  or  significant  result.  The  first  great  merit  of 
President  Gilman  was  that,  from  the  moment  that  he 
was  called  to  Baltimore,  the  object  which  he  set  before 
himself  was  that  of  making  the  institution  which  was  to 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  381 

arise  there  under  his  guidance  a  means  of  supplying  to 
a  nation  intellectual  training  of  a  higher  order  than 
could  be  obtained  at  existing  colleges  and  universities, 
and  thus  distinctly  raising  the  standards  of  American 
science  and  scholarship.  The  wisdom  of  Johns  Hopkins 
in  placing  no  restrictions  on  the  discretion  of  his  trustees, 
and  the  intelligence  and  broad-mindedness  of  the  trus- 
tees themselves,  gave  President  Gilman  a  rare  and  en- 
viable opportunity  to  carry  out  this  high  purpose;  but 
it  must  not  be  forgotten  that,  in  the  practical  execution 
of  such  a  task,  there  arise  a  thousand  difficulties,  temp- 
tations, and  insidious  dangers,  any  one  of  which  may 
portend  serious  damage,  and  all  of  which,  taken  together, 
may  mean  utter  failure.  To  be  firm  against  local  preju- 
dices or  desires  when  in  conflict  with  the  great  end 
in  view;  to  be  uninfluenced  by  personal  claims  and  un- 
afraid of  temporary  complainings;  to  disappoint  the 
natural  hopes  of  those  who  were  anxious  to  see  imposing 
buildings  and  big  crowds  of  students,  and  to  await  the 
recognition  which  attends  the  genuine  achievement  of 
a  vital  but  not  superficially  showy  result  —  these  are 
things  that  look  easy  in  the  retrospect,  but  that  did  not 
seem  by  any  means  matters  of  course  before  the  event. 
As  to  the  actual  methods  adopted  in  the  inception  of 
the  Johns  Hopkins  University,  it  would  be  an  error  to 
attribute  them  to  the  unaided  initiative  of  President 
Gilman.  He  felt  his  way;  he  had  at  his  side,  in  the  orig- 
inal group  of  six  professors,  men  who  were  not  only 
eminent  scholars,  investigators,  and  teachers,  but  able 
advisers.  Three  were  American  and  three  English;  and 
of  the  three  Americans,  two  had  been  thoroughly  imbued 
with  the  methods  of  the  German  universities  in  which 
they  had  been  trained.  It  was,  of  course,  in  the  main  the 
adoption  of  German  university  standards  and  methods 


382    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

that  characterized  the  new  university  at  Baltimore,  and 
differentiated  it  from  anything  that  had  theretofore 
existed  in  America;  and  in  determining  just  how  far  to 
go  in  this  direction  the  views  of  two  such  men  as  Gilder- 
sleeve  and  Remsen  were  naturally  of  the  utmost  value 
and  influence.  Anything  like  an  exact  imitation  of  the 
German  university  was  not  attempted;  but  the  con- 
clusion was  soon  arrived  at  that  the  German  doctorate 
of  philosophy  must  be  set  up  as  the  fixed  goal  of  students, 
and  that  the  German  Seminar  must  be  one  of  the  chief 
instruments  of  instruction.  That  before  receiving  the 
university  degree  the  candidate  must  have  shown  the 
training  of  an  investigator  in  his  chief  subject,  as  well 
as  the  acquisition  of  a  certain  amount  of  specialized 
knowledge,  was  thus  fundamental  in  the  Johns  Hopkins 
plan  from  the  beginning;  it  need  hardly  be  added  that, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  productive  research  was,  generally 
speaking,  understood  to  be  an  indispensable  part  of  the 
activities  of  the  professorial  body.  That  the  combina- 
tion of  the  work  of  research  with  the  work  of  teaching 
was  a  cardinal  part  of  President  Gilman's  programme 
from  the  outset  is  evident  from  his  inaugural  address 
delivered  February  22,  1876,  half  a  year  before  the 
university  was  opened;  and  the  promptness  with  which 
the  university  began  the  publication  of  the  American 
Journal  of  Mathematics,  the  American  Chemical  Journal, 
and  the  American  Journal  of  Philology  gave  evidence  of 
the  prominence,  in  President  Gilman's  mind,  of  the  idea 
of  furnishing  all  necessary  facilities  and  encouragements 
for  the  prosecution  of  research. 

The  project  of  establishing  twenty  fellowships,  to  be 
held  for  a  period  of  from  one  to  three  years  by  young 
men  of  good  attainments  and  of  unusual  promise,  had 
been  adopted  by  Mr.  Gilman  before  he  had  gathered 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  383 

his  professors  together,  and  it  proved  to  be  a  factor  of  the 
first  importance  in  the  creation  of  that  inspiriting  atmos- 
phere which  distinguished  the  early  years  of  the  Johns 
Hopkins,  and  which  all  who  shared  in  the  labors  and  the 
enthusiasms  of  that  time  cherish  among  the  brightest 
memories  of  their  lives.  The  fellowship  and  scholarship 
method  of  attracting  students  has,  in  the  past  thirty 
years,  spread  to  great  dimensions  in  our  country,  with 
results  that  are  not  without  their  objectionable  side; 
but  neither  at  the  Johns  Hopkins  nor  elsewhere  is  the 
idea  of  the  fellowship  now  what  it  was  when  Mr.  Oilman 
gathered  in  the  aspiring  young  men  who  held  the  Johns 
Hopkins  fellowships  in  the  first  few  years.  It  may  be 
somewhat  difficult  to  point  out  the  exact  difference;  but 
perhaps  this  may  best  be  indicated  by  saying  that  the 
Johns  Hopkins  fellowship  in  those  days  did  not  seem  a  rou- 
tine matter,  an  every-day  step  in  the  regular  process  to- 
ward a  doctorate  or  a  professorship,  but  a  rare  and  pecul- 
iar opportunity  for  study  and  research,  eagerly  seized  by 
men  who  had  been  hungering  and  thirsting  for  such  a 
possibility.  Of  course  not  every  one  of  the  twenty  was 
a  rara  avis,  nor  was  every  one  equally  enthusiastic.  But, 
on  the  whole,  here  was  a  little  phalanx  of  gifted  and 
ardent  young  men  gathered  from  every  quarter  of  the 
country,  some  of  them  fresh  from  study  in  Germany, 
and  nearly  all  filled  with  the  idea  that  a  new  world  was 
opening  out  for  American  learning  and  that  they  were 
the  first  to  be  admitted  to  the  privilege  of  entering  upon 
its  intellectual  joys.  At  least  one  member  of  the  first 
band  of  fellows,  a  man  who  has  reached  the  highest  dis- 
tinction as  a  philosophical  thinker  and  writer  —  Profes- 
sor Royce  —  some  years  ago  recorded  in  a  charming 
way  his  recollections  of  those  inspiring  days,  and  what 
he  says  about  them  is  no  more  than  those  who  were 


384    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

his  contemporaries  at  Johns  Hopkins  will  recognize  as 
true. 

Among  the  qualities  of  President  Gilman  to  which  the 
splendid  success  of  the  young  university  was  due,  none 
is  more  frequently  or  more  justly  pointed  to  than  his 
rare  talent  in  the  choice  of  men.  With  the  small  faculty 
with  which  the  work  was  begun,  it  was  of  essential  im- 
portance that  every  appointment,  or  nearly  every  ap- 
pointment, should  be  of  preeminent  excellence;  and  such 
was  the  case.  Moreover,  the  qualities  of  the  various  pro- 
fessors —  their  temperament,  their  predilections,  their 
methods,  their  origin  and  antecedents  —  were  extremely 
diverse;  and  it  was  in  a  measure  this  very  diversity  that 
gave  Johns  Hopkins  that  peculiarly  intense  and  pictur- 
esque vitality  that  was  so  marked  in  its  early  years.  It 
would  never  in  the  world  have  done  to  have  a  whole 
faculty  of  Sylvesters;  anything  like  a  systematic  pro- 
gramme would  have  been  out  of  the  question,  and  still 
more  out  of  the  question  would  have  been  the  carrying 
out  of  any  programme  whatever.  But  on  the  other  hand, 
the  presence  of  one  Sylvester  was  of  absolutely  incalcu- 
lable value.  Not  only  did  he  fire  the  zeal  of  the  young 
men  who  came  for  mathematics,  but  the  contagion  of 
his  intellectual  ardor  was  felt  in  every  department  of  the 
university,  and  did  more  than  any  other  one  thing  to 
quicken  that  spirit  of  idealistic  devotion  to  the  pursuit 
of  truth  and  the  enlargement  of  knowledge  which  is,  after 
all,  the  very  soul  of  a  university.  It  was  one  of  the  finest 
traits  of  President  Gilman  that  he  not  only  appre- 
ciated qualities  like  Sylvester's  sufficiently  to  lead  him 
to  select  such  a  man  in  the  first  place,  but  —  what  is  far 
more  noteworthy  —  was  capable  of  such  genuine  sym- 
pathy with  him,  such  participation  in  his  aims  and  en- 
thusiasms, as  to  overcome  all  the  barriers  and  difficulties 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  385 

and  vexations  that  necessarily  attended  dealings  with  a 
man  having  in  so  extraordinary  a  measure  the  trying 
temperamental  peculiarities  that  are  the  privilege  of 
genius.  It  was  not  only  in  the  selection  of  men,  but  in 
dealing  with  them,  that  Gilman  showed  the  gifts  of  a 
remarkable  administrator.  Nor  does  this  adequately 
express  the  source  of  his  hold  on  his  colleagues,  for  that 
was  due  not  merely  to  skill  or  sagacity,  but  also  to  the 
really  extraordinary  breadth  of  his  interests.  There  was 
nothing  great,  nothing  significant  in  any  field  of  effort, 
that  failed  to  appeal  to  his  imagination  and  to  arouse  in 
him  the  keen  interest  of  a  man  whose  mind  was  ever  open 
to  the  possibilities  of  achievement  and  to  the  promotion 
of  culture  in  all  its  forms. 

Mr.  Gilman's  career  did  not  begin  with  the  foundation 
of  the  Johns  Hopkins  University,  and  did  not  end  with 
his  retirement  from  its  presidency  after  twenty-five  years 
of  service.  Nor  was  his  activity  during  that  twenty-five 
years  confined  to  his  university  work.  He  took  an  im- 
portant and  sometimes  a  leading  part  in  every  movement 
for  educational  and  social  betterment  in  Baltimore;  he 
was  selected  by  President  Cleveland  as  a  member  of  the 
Venezuela  Boundary  Commission,  and  effectively  ap- 
plied his  skill  as  a  geographer  and  his  talent  for  the  or- 
ganization of  a  complex  work  to  the  task  of  that  body; 
he  succeeded  Carl  Schurz  as  president  of  the  National 
Civil  Service  Reform  League;  he  took  an  active  and 
important  part  in  the  administration  of  the  Peabody 
Fund,  the  Slater  Fund,  and  the  General  Educational 
Fund.  Before  the  Johns  Hopkins  days,  he  had  done  fine 
work  at  Yale,  especially  in  the  development  of  the 
Sheffield  Scientific  School;  and  his  acceptance  of  the 
presidency  of  the  University  of  California  resulted  in  its 
almost  immediate  transformation  from  an  insignificant 


386    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

to  an  important  institution.  He  edited  the  works  of 
Francis  Lieber  and  wrote  a  life  of  James  Monroe  and  a 
number  of  papers  on  subjects  connected  with  education 
and  with  government.  After  his  resignation  from  Johns 
Hopkins,  he  became  the  first  president  of  the  Carnegie 
Institution,  and  continued  at  that  post  during  the  years 
in  which  its  work  was  taking  shape. 

But,  after  all,  the  central  fact  of  his  life,  and  that 
which  gives  it  genuine  historical  importance,  was  the 
formation  of  the  Johns  Hopkins  University.  From  this 
event  will  always  be  dated  the  raising  of  America's  chief 
institutions  of  learning  to  the  plane  of  real  universities, 
and  indeed  the  beginning,  in  our  country,  of  productive 
intellectual  activity  on  a  large  scale  in  the  higher  fields 
of  research.  If  anybody  is  inclined  to  think  that  there 
was  nothing  but  coincidence  in  this  —  that  it  was  only 
a  matter  of  the  time  and  the  money  coming  fortunately 
together  —  it  is  worth  while  to  call  his  attention  to  the 
way  in  which  history  repeated  itself  when,  seventeen  years 
after  the  foundation  of  the  university,  the  gift  of  the 
moderate  sum  of  half  a  million  dollars,  by  Miss  Garrett 
and  others,  rendered  possible  the  opening  of  the  Johns 
Hopkins  Medical  School.  It  was  not  an  accident  that 
such  men  as  Welch  and  Osier  —  not  to  mention  others  — 
were  found  for  the  work  then  undertaken;  it  was  not  an 
accident  that  the  result  of  that  work  was  such  as  was 
characterized  by  President  Eliot  when  he  spoke  of  "the 
prodigious  advancement  of  medical  teaching  which  has 
resulted  from  the  labors  of  the  Johns  Hopkins  faculty 
of  medicine."  However  ripe  the  time  may  have  been,  it 
awaited  the  awakening  touch  of  the  right  men,  set  on 
the  right  track,  encouraged  and  aided  to  do  the  right 
thing,  before  the  result  was  accomplished.  President 
Gilman  was,  all  his  life,  a  centre  of  hopeful  and  creative 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  387 

activity ;  he  had  a  genuine  love  of  large  and  useful  achieve- 
ment, and  he  had  both  the  steadfastness  of  purpose  and 
the  clearness  of  judgment  necessary  to  the  realization  of 
such  achievement;  he  took  a  keen  interest  in  those  who 
worked  with  him  and  those  who  worked  under  him;  he 
was  quick  to  discern  excellence  of  every  kind,  and  eager 
to  help  its  possessor  to  the  best  opportunities  for  the 
exercise  of  his  powers;  he  filled  every  year  of  his  long  life 
with  energetic  and  beneficent  activity;  he  was  kindly  and 
generous;  he  never  lowered  the  dignity  of  his  office;  and 
he  leaves  behind  him  a  rare  record  of  high  and  lasting 
service  to  his  country  and  to  the  cause  of  learning. 


MAKE  TWAIN 

By  Stuart  P.  Sherman 

(May  12,  1910) 

No  American  writer  has  ever  enjoyed  a  more  purely 
democratic  reputation  than  Mark  Twain.  From  village 
celebrity  to  international  renown,  he  has  been  advanced 
stage  after  stage  by  popular  suffrage.  The  plain,  unbook- 
ish burgess  holding  both  his  sides  at  a  public  lecture  has 
helped  roar  him  into  eminence.  The  freckled,  brown- 
legged  pirate  who  finds  Tom  Sawyer  nearer  to  his  busi- 
ness and  his  bosom  than  Robinson  Crusoe  has  played 
no  negligible  part  in  the  campaign.  The  vote  of  the 
retired  merchant  reading  "A  Tramp  Abroad  "  in  prepara- 
tion for  a  European  holiday  told  decisively  in  his  favor 
before  the  tardy  voice  of  the  professional  critic  assented. 
When  an  overwhelming  majority  of  his  fellow  country- 
men had  established  his  position,  the  universities  rec- 
ognized the  fact,  so  that  one  day  not  long  ago,  he  strolled 
into  the  Sheldonian  Theatre,  clad  in  scarlet,  and,  after 
a  "very  satisfactory  hurrah"  from  the  audience,  was 
created  doctor  of  letters  by  the  University  of  Oxford. 

During  the  last  few  years  of  his  life,  he  attained  a  still 
higher  honor.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  no  one  will  attempt 
to  distinguish  the  customary  "three  periods"  of  his  de- 
velopment, because,  contrary  to  custom,  he  was  essen- 
tially the  same  in  all  parts  of  his  career.  One  may  dis- 
tinguish, however,  three  aspects  of  his  reputation.  Like 
a  political  orator  making  his  maiden  speech  or  invading 
hostile  territory,  he  broke  through  the  reserve  of  his  au- 
dience with  a  string  of  irresistible  stories.  Handicapped 
by  uproarious  laughter,  he  produced  two  or  three  pieces 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  389 

of  fiction  which  demanded  serious  attention;  but  his 
leonine  head  had  grown  gray  before  he  lived  down  his 
record  as  a  "platform  humorist."  At  his  seventieth 
birthday,  he  obtained  a  reconsideration  of  his  case,  and 
the  highest  tribunals  decided  that  he  indubitably  be- 
longed in  the  history  of  literature,  if,  indeed,  he  was  not 
the  "foremost  American  man  of  letters."  After  that, 
national  feeling  about  him  crystallized  rapidly.  He  ap- 
peared in  white  flannels  in  midwinter,  declaring  that 
white  was  the  only  wear  for  a  man  with  seventy  clean 
years  behind  him;  we  were  significantly  pleased.  After 
our  newspapers  had  made  one  of  their  little  breaks,  he 
sent  word  to  us  that  the  reports  of  his  death  were 
"greatly  exaggerated."  It  was  a  phrase  that  we  all 
envied,  from  the  President  down;  we  saw  that  he  was  no 
mere  literary  man  —  he  was  a  public  man.  When  he 
died,  we  abandoned  the  last  reservation.  We  said  with 
one  voice:  He  was  an  American. 

To  the  foreign  critic  this  ultimate  tribute  may  seem 
perplexingly  cheap  and  anticlimactic.  That  is,  of  course, 
due  to  the  mistaken  notion  that  we  number  some  four 
score  millions  of  Americans.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  we 
number  our  Americans  on  our  ten  fingers;  the  rest  of  us 
are  merely  citizens  of  the  United  States.  Any  one  who 
will  take  a  little  pains  with  the  alphabet  may  become  a 
citizen;  to  become  an  American  demands  other  talents. 
We  are  more  than  doubtful  about  Washington.  Lowell 
said  that  Lincoln  was  the  first  American,  but  he  forgot 
Franklin.  There  have  been  one  or  two  since  Lincoln's 
time.  From  certain  indications,  it  looks  as  if  Mr.  Roose- 
velt might  turn  out  to  be  an  American.  Only  the  other 
day,  he  sent  us  a  message  to  this  effect:  "I  know  that  the 
American  people  will  agree  that  I  could  have  acted  in 
no  other  way  than  I  did  act."  The  American  is  a  man  of 


390    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

destiny.  His  word  and  deed  flow  inevitably  out  of  the 
American  character.  On  the  one  hand,  he  does  a  thing 
because  it  is  right;  on  the  other  hand,  the  thing  is  right 
because  he  does  it.  Revising  the  thought  of  Henry  V, 
we  may  say,  Nice  customs  curtsy  to  great  Americans. 

The  point  is  strikingly  illustrated  by  a  story  which 
Mark  Twain  tells  on  himself  in  one  of  the  chapters  of 
his  autobiography.  It  was  in  1877,  before  a  company  in- 
cluding all  the  leading  geniuses  of  New  England,  ban- 
queting in  honor  of  Whittier's  birthday.  When  Mark 
Twain's  turn  came,  he  rose  and  entered  upon  a  fictitious 
"reminiscence."  Out  in  southern  California  he  had 
knocked  at  a  miner's  cabin,  and  announced  himself  as 
a  literary  man.  The  miner  replied  with  marked  ill-humor 
that  he  had  just  got  rid  of  three  of  them,  "Mr.  Long- 
fellow, Mr.  Emerson,  Mr.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  — 
consound  the  lot.  .  .  .  Mr.  Emerson  was  a  seedy  little 
bit  of  a  chap,  red-headed;  Mr.  Holmes  was  as  fat  as  a 
balloon;  he  weighed  as  much  as  three  hundred,  and  had 
double  chins  all  the  way  down  to  his  stomach.  Mr. 
Longfellow  was  built  like  a  prizefighter.  .  .  .  They  had 
been  drinking,  I  could  see  that."  And  so  on. 

At  the  words  "consound  the  lot,"  Twain  had  ex- 
pected a  peal  of  laughter,  but  to  his  amazement  "the 
expression  of  interest  in  the  faces  turned  to  a  sort  of  black 
frost."  The  whole  story  was  a  dismal  failure;  it  was 
years  before  the  author  recovered  from  the  shame  of  it. 
Speaking  as  a  mere  reader  of  Lamb,  Jane  Austen,  Thack- 
eray, O.  W.  Holmes,  I  am  not  in  the  least  surprised  at  the 
New  England  frost.  I  know  very  well  that  Congreve  or 
Addison  or  George  Meredith  would  have  agreed  with  the 
New  England  geniuses  that  Mark  Twain's  reminiscence 
was  a  piece  of  crude,  heavy,  intellectual  horse-play  —  an 
impudent  affront  offered  to  Puritan  aristocracy  by  a 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  391 

rough-handed  plebeian  jester  from  Missouri.    But  hear 
Mark  Twain  thirty  years  later : 

I  have  read  it  twice,  and  unless  I  am  an  idiot,  it  has  n't  a 
single  defect  in  it  from  the  first  word  to  the  last.  It  is  just  as 
good  as  can  be.  It  is  smart;  it  is  saturated  with  humor.  There 
is  n't  a  suggestion  of  coarseness  or  vulgarity  in  it  anywhere. 
What  could  have  been  the  matter  with  that  house?  ...  If  I 
had  those  beloved  and  revered  old  literary  immortals  back 
here  ...  I  would  melt  them  till  they  'd  run  all  over  that  stage ! 

In  his  mellow  Indian  summer  Mark  Twain  himself 
grew  conscious  that  he  had  become  an  American.  He 
knew,  therefore,  that  the  speech  was  right,  because  he  had 
made  it.  I  confess  to  a  doubt  whether  those  "old  literary 
immortals"  would  laugh  at  it  even  now;  if  they  would 
not,  as  a  countryman  of  Lincoln  I  should  be  ashamed  of 
them.  The  man  who  cannot  laugh  with  Twain  must  be 
either  better  or  worse  than  the  "overwhelming  major- 
ity" of  his  fellow-citizens.  To  accept  him  is  almost  equiv- 
alent to  accepting  the  American  flag.  When  once  you 
have  sworn  allegiance,  you  may  find  fault  with  both  for 
the  rest  of  your  life  without  impeachment  of  your  patriot- 
ism. "I  paint  myriads  of  heads,"  cried  Walt  Wrhitman, 
"but  I  paint  no  head  without  its  nimbus  of  gold-colored 
light."  He  was  prophesying  the  golden  mean,  which  he 
called  the  "divine  average,"  and  which  he  knew  was 
actually  rarer  than  either  extreme.  He  was  prophesying 
Mark  Twain.  "WTio  are  you,  indeed,"  he  exclaims, 
"who  would  talk  or  sing  in  America?"  The  antiphonal 
voice  replies: 

I  swear  I  will  have  each  quality  of  my  race  in  myself, 
Talk  as  you  like,  he  only  suits  These  States  whose  manners  favor  the 
audacity  and  sublime  turbulence  of  The  States. 


392    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

Humor,  it  is  agreed,  consists  in  contrasts  and  incon- 
gruities, and  the  essence  of  Mark  Twain's  most  char- 
acteristic humor   consists   in   contrasting   this  typical, 
nimbused  American,  compacted  of  golden  mediocrities, 
against  the  world  —  consists  in  showing  the  incongruity 
of  the  rest  of  the  world  with  this  nimbused  American. 
It  necessarily  follows  that  the  heights  and  depths  of 
humor  are  beyond  the  reaches  of  Mark  Twain's  soul. 
It  necessarily  follows  that  his  laughter  is  burly,  not  fine; 
broad,  not  profound;  national,  not  universal.   When  he 
that  sitteth  in  the  heavens  laughs,  he  is  not  contrasting 
the  year  1910  with  the  year  1300,  nor  the  President  of 
the  United  States  with  Louis  XVI,  nor  the  uncrowned 
sovereigns  of  Missouri  with  the  serfs  of  Russia,  Ger- 
many, or  England.   The  comparison  is  intolerable  —  let 
us  mark  a  lowlier  difference.   When  Puck  in  the  "Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream,"  looking  out  upon  the  bewil- 
dered lovers  exclaims,  "Lord,  what  fools  these  mortals 
be";  when  Titania,  waking  from  magical  sleep,  murmurs 
drowsily,  "Methought  I  was  enamoured  of  an  ass"  — 
the  mirth  of  these  subtle  creatures  is  kindled  by  the  con- 
trast between  sentimental  and  bottom  humanity,  re- 
spectively, and  the  exquisite  manners  and  passions  of 
elfland.    If  Twain  had  written  the  play,  he  would  have 
put  Puck  into  overalls  and  Titania  into  a  hoop-skirt. 
For  he  ignored  the  ethereal  hunger  which  troubled  the 
creator  of  Falstaff,  and  never  entered  into  the  secret 
laughter  of  the  idealist.  Let  us  descend  once  more.   It  is 
said  that  the  last  book  Mark  Twain  read  was  Carlyle's 
"French  Revolution."  I  suppose  he  loved  it  incidentally 
for  its  picturesque  and  savage  energy,  but  mainly  be- 
cause it  proclaims  that  a  man's  a  man  for  all  that.   He 
shows  traces  both  of  its  style  and  of  its  central  thought 
in  his  own  work.   But  so  far  as  I  know,  he  never  shows 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  393 

a  trace  of  its  heart-searching  irony,  of  that  universal 
world-humor  which  arises  when  the  upstart,  red-blooded 
pageant  of  time's  latest  hour  is  confronted  with  the 
grim,  dim  phantasms  of  eternity  — 

Charlemagne  sleeps  at  Salzburg,  with  truncheon  grounded, 
only  fable  expecting  that  he  will  waken.  Charles  the  Hammer, 
Pepin  Bow-legged,  where  now  is  their  eye  of  menace,  their 
voice  of  command?  Rollo  and  his  shaggy  Northmen  cover  not 
the  Seine  with  ships,  but  have  sailed  off  on  a  longer  voyage. 
The  hair  of  Tow-head  (Tete  d'etoupes)  now  needs  no  combing; 
Iron-cutter  (Taillefer)  cannot  cut  a  cobweb;  shrill  Fredegonda, 
shrill  Brunhilda,  have  had  out  their  hot  life-scold,  and  lie 
silent,  their  hot  life-frenzy  cooled.  .  .  .  They  are  all  gone;  sunk- 
down,  down  with  the  tumult  they  made;  and  the  rolling  and 
trampling  of  ever  new  generations  passes  over  them;  and  they 
hear  it  not  any  more  forever. 

Carlyle  makes  ducks  and  drakes  of  Charlemagne  and 
shrill  Fredegonda,  but  he  laughs  with  a  by-gone  eter- 
nity. When  Whitman  asks  that  stupendous  question, 
"Whom  have  you  slaughtered  lately,  European  heads- 
man?" millions  of  strange  shadows  tend  on  him.  He, 
too,  is  a  humorist,  and  a  grave  one.  He  makes  ducks  and 
drakes  of  the  "old  literary  immortals,"  for  he  laughs 
with  an  eternity  to  come.  Mark  Twain  cannot  be  per- 
suaded that  we  are  such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  of; 
looking  neither  before  nor  after,  he  laughs  with  the  pres- 
ent hour;  and  he  cannot  stand  the  comparison. 

Not  by  his  subtlety,  then,  nor  his  depth,  nor  his  eleva- 
tion, but  by  his  understanding  and  his  unflinching  asser- 
tion of  the  ordinary  self  of  the  ordinary  American  did 
Mark  Twain  become  our  "foremost  man  of  letters." 

He  was  geographically  an  American;  he  knew  his  land 
and  its  idioms  at  first  hand  —  Missouri,  the  Mississippi 


394    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

River  and  its  banks,  Nevada,  California,  New  England, 
New  York,  the  great  cities.  It  is  insufficiently  recognized 
that  to  love  one's  country  intelligently  one  must  know 
its  body,  as  well  as  its  mind.  He  had  the  good  fortune 
to  be  born  in  the  West;  so  that,  of  course,  he  had  to  go 
East  —  otherwise  he  might,  instead  of  becoming  an 
American,  have  remained  a  mere  Bostonian  or  New 
Yorker  all  his  life,  and  never  have  learned  to  love  Chicago 
and  San  Francisco  at  all.  At  various  times  and  places, 
he  was  pilot,  printer,  editor,  reporter,  miner,  lecturer, 
author,  and  publisher.  But  during  the  first  half  of  his 
life,  he  went  most  freely  with  "powerful  uneducated 
persons,  and  with  the  young,  and  with  the  mothers  of 
families."  The  books  in  which  he  embodies  his  early 
experiences  —  "Tom  Sawyer,"  "Roughing  It,"  "Huck- 
leberry Finn "  —  are  almost  entirely  delightful.  They 
breathe  the  spirit  of  eternal  boyhood,  they  are  richly 
provincial,  they  spring  out  of  the  fresh  earth.  There  is  a 
touch  of  melodrama  in  the  first  and  more  than  a  touch 
of  farce  in  the  last,  but  in  the  main,  they  are  as  native  as 
a  bluff  to  the  Mississippi  or  a  pine  tree  to  a  red  spur  of 
the  Rockies. 

It  is  when  an  American  carries  his  virtues  abroad  that 
the  lines  of  his  character  become  salient.  Mark  Twain 
was  a  self-made  man,  of  small  Latin  and  less  Greek,  in- 
different to  abstractions,  deficient  in  historical  sympathy 
and  imagination,  insensitive  to  delicate  social  differences, 
content  and  at  home  in  modern  workaday  realities.  I 
confess  with  great  apprehension  that  I  do  not  much 
care  for  his  books  of  foreign  travel.  Like  the  story  told  on 
Whittier's  birthday,  they  are  "smart  and  saturated 
with  humor";  but  for  some  almost  indefinable  reason  my 
emotions  fail  to  enter  into  the  spirit  of  the  occasion.  An 
uneasy  doubt  about  the  point  of  view  binds  my  mirth 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  395 

as  with  a  "black  frost."  I  find  myself  concerned  for  my 
fellow-citizen,  the  author  behind  the  books;  beneath  the 
surface  gayety  the  whole  affair  seems  to  be  of  appalling 
seriousness  for  us  both.  Ostensibly  light-hearted  bur- 
lesques of  the  poetical  and  sentimental  volumes  of  travel, 
these  books  are  in  reality  an  amazingly  faithful  record 
of  the  way  Europe  and  the  Orient  strike  the  "divine  aver- 
age" —  the  typical  American  —  the  man  for  whom  the 
world  was  created  in  1776.  Wandering  through  exhumed 
Pompeii,  he  peoples  its  solemn  ruins  with  the  American 
proletariat,  and  fancies  that  he  sees  upon  the  walls  of  its 
theatre  the  placard,  "Positively  No  Free  List,  Except 
Members  of  the  Press."  He  digresses  from  an  account 
of  the  ascent  of  Vesuvius  to  compare  the  prices  of  gloves, 
linen  shirts,  and  dress  suits  in  Paris  and  in  Italy.  At 
length  arrived  at  the  summit  of  the  mountain,  he  de- 
scribes its  crater  as  a  "circular  ditch";  some  of  the  party 
light  their  cigars  in  the  fissures;  he  descends,  observing 
that  the  volcano  is  a  poor  affair  when  compared  with 
Kilauea,  in  the  Sandwich  Islands.  He  visits  the  Parthe- 
non in  the  night;  obviously,  the  memorable  feature  of 
the  expedition  was  robbing  the  vineyards  on  the  way 
back  to  the  ship.  The  most  famous  picture  galleries  of 
Europe  are  hung  with  "celebrated  rubbish";  the  im- 
memorial Mosque  of  St.  Sophia  is  the  "mustiest  barn 
in  heathendom";  the  Sea  of  Galilee  is  nothing  to  Lake 
Tahoe.  The  Mississippi  pilot,  homely,  naive,  arrogantly 
candid,  refuses  to  sink  his  identity  in  the  object  contem- 
plated —  that,  as  Corporal  Nym  would  have  said,  is 
the  humor  of  it.  He  is  the  kind  of  travelling  companion 
that  makes  you  wonder  why  you  went  abroad.  He  turns 
the  Old  World  into  a  laughing-stock  by  shearing  it  of  its 
stored  humanity  —  simply  because  there  is  nothing  in 
him  to  respond  to  the  glory  that  was  Greece,  to  the 


396    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

grandeur  that  was  Rome  —  simply  because  nothing  is 
holier  to  him  than  a  joke.  He  does  not  throw  the  comic 
light  upon  counterfeit  enthusiasm;  he  laughs  at  art,  his- 
tory, and  antiquity  from  the  point  of  view  of  one  who 
is  ignorant  of  them  and  mightily  well  satisfied  with  his 
ignorance.  And,  unless  I  am  very  much  mistaken,  the 
"overwhelming  majority"  of  his  fellow-citizens  —  those 
who  made  the  success  of  "Innocents  Abroad"  and  "A 
Tramp  Abroad  "  —  have  laughed  with  him,  not  at  him. 
So,  too,  unquestionably,  in  the  nearly  parallel  case  of 
that  bludgeoning  burlesque,  "A  Connecticut  Yankee  at 
King  Arthur's  Court." 

What  endears  a  public  man  to  us  is  what  he  has  in  com- 
mon with  us  —  not  his  occasional  supereminences.  It 
does  not  damage  Franklin  to  say  that  he  was  not  so 
graceful  as  Lord  Chesterfield;  nor  Lincoln  to  say  that  he 
was  not  so  handsome  as  Count  D'Orsay;  nor  Mr.  Roose- 
velt to  say  that  one  misses  in  his  literary  style  I  know 
not  what  that  one  finds  in  the  style  of  Walter  Savage 
Landor.  Writing  from  Khartum,  the  hunter  tells  us 
that,  in  consequence  of  hard  service  in  camp,  his  pigskin 
books  were  "stained  with  blood,  sweat,  gun  oil,  dust, 
and  ashes."  We  have  a  mystical  feeling  that  this  is  very 
appropriate  and  beautiful  —  that  a  good  American's 
books  ought  to  be  stained  with  gun  oil  and  ashes.  "Fear 
grace  —  fear  delicatesse,"  cries  the  author  of  "Chants 
Democratic."  It  does  not  damage  Mark  Twain  to  say 
that  there  was  not  a  drop  of  the  aristocrat  in  his  veins. 

In  politics  he  was  an  intelligent  but  unspeculative 
democrat,  committed  to  the  principles  of  the  preamble  to 
the  Constitution,  preserving  a  tang  of  Tom  Paine's  con- 
tempt for  kings,  and  not  without  a  suggestion  of  the 
republican  insolence  caricatured  by  Dickens  in  "Martin 
Chuzzlewit."    I  do  not  think  that  he  gave  a  "square 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  397 

deal"  either  to  Europe  or  to  the  Arthurian  realm;  but 
within  his  own  territory  he  had  a  very  genuine  sense  of 
the  brotherhood  of  man.  He  was  not,  like  some  more 
exquisite  men  of  letters,  a  democrat  in  his  study  and  a 
snob  in  his  drawing-room;  he  was  of  the  people  and  for 
the  people  at  all  times.  His  tender  regard  for  the  social 
contract  permeated  his  humor.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  Pudd'nhead  Wilson  earned  his  nickname  and 
ruined  his  chances  as  a  lawyer  for  twenty  years  by  an 
incomprehensible  remark  about  a  howling  dog.  "I  wish 
I  owned  half  of  that  dog,"  said  Wilson.  "Why?"  some- 
body asked.  "Because  I  would  kill  my  half."  No  one 
understood  him  —  the  sensitive,  symbolic  democracy 
of  the  expression  was  too  compact  for  their  intelligence, 
and  they  fell  into  a  delicious  discussion  of  how  one  half 
could  be  killed  without  injury  to  the  other  half.  That, 
to  be  sure,  is  also  one  of  the  problems  of  democracy ;  but 
Wilson's  implications  were,  I  believe,  both  simpler  and 
deeper  than  that.  In  not  molesting  another  man's  dog 
he  showed  the  American  reverence  for  property.  The 
American  desire  to  be  moderately  well-to-do  (Mr.  Roose- 
velt's  "neither  rich  nor  poor")  he  indicated  by  desiring 
to  own  only  half  the  dog.  In  saying  that  he  would  kill 
his  half  he  expressed  his  sacred  and  inalienable  right  to 
dispose  of  his  own  property  as  he  chose,  while  at  the 
same  time  he  recognized  his  neighbor's  sacred  and  in- 
alienable right  to  let  his  half  of  the  property  howl.  In- 
deed, I  am  not  sure  that  he  did  not  recognize  that  the  dog 
itself  had  a  certain  property  right  in  howling. 

With  almost  every  qualification  for  a  successful  poli- 
tical career,  Mark  Twain  could  never  have  aspired  to 
the  Presidency,  for  he  was  not  a  regular  attendant  at 
church  —  a  shortcoming,  by  the  way,  which  interfered 
seriously  with  Mr.  Taft's  campaign  till  his  former  pastor 


398    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

testified  in  the  public  prints  that  the  candidate  had  once 
at  a  church  social  taken  the  part  of  a  fairy.  In  religion, 
Twain  appeared  to  be  a  mugwump,  or,  more  classically 
speaking,  an  agnostic  over  whom  had  fallen  the  shadow 
of  Robert  Ingersoll  of  pious  memory.  The  irreligion  of 
that  generation  is  touched  with  a  raw,  philistine  ration- 
alism, but  is  thoroughly  honest.  Like  all  Americans,  the 
author  of  "Tom  Sawyer"  received  his  religious  culture 
in  the  Sunday-school,  but  stumbled  over  the  book  of 
Genesis  and  kindred  difficulties,  and  was  "  emancipated." 
The  loss  of  faith  which,  in  proper  conditions,  is  a  terrible 
bereavement,  was  to  him  a  blessed  relief;  when  the  God 
of  the  Sunday-school  and  the  camp  meeting  ceases  to 
terrify,  he  ordinarily  becomes  a  deadly  bore.  Having 
never  known  the  magnificent  poetry  of  faith,  he  never 
felt  the  magnificent  melancholy  of  unbelief.  His  experi- 
ence was  typical,  however,  and  his  very  unspirituality 
was  social.  In  his  examination  of  Christian  Science,  he 
admitted  that  every  man  is  entitled  to  his  own  favorite 
brand  of  insanity,  and  insisted  that  he  himself  was  as 
insane  as  anybody.  That  was  enough  to  assure  most  of 
us  that  he  was  sound  on  "all  essentials." 

"Be  good  and  you  will  be  lonesome"  is,  I  suppose,  one 
of  Mark  Twain's  most  widely  quoted  utterances  on  moral 
topics.  At  first  thought,  one  may  wonder  why  this  ap- 
parently Bohemian  apothegm  should  have  taken  such 
hold  upon  the  heart  of  a  nation  which  above  all  things  else 
adores  virtue.  But  the  difficulty  disappears  the  instant 
one  reflects  that  these  seven  words  express  as  in  a  nut- 
shell precisely  the  kind  and  temper  of  virtue  that  the 
nation  adores.  Like  Wilson's  observation  on  the  dog,  the 
saying  is  cryptic  and  requires  explication.  Twain  tells  us 
in  his  autobiography  that  when  he  was  a  boy  his  mother 
always  allowed  about  thirty  per  cent  on  what  he  said  for 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  399 

"embroidery"  and  so  "struck  his  average."  The  saying 
means,  as  I  take  it,  first  of  all,  Don't  lose  your  sense  of 
humor  as  those  do  who  become  infatuated  with  their  own 
particular  hobbies  in  goodness.  Calculate  to  keep  about 
in  the  middle  of  the  road,  but  make  allowance  for  all 
reasonable  shades  of  difference  in  taste  and  opinion. 
Don't  be  too  good  or  you  will  find  yourself  in  a  barren 
and  uninfluential  minority  of  one.  In  America,  whatever 
is  not  social  is  not  virtue.  When  he  put  his  shoulder 
under  the  debts  of  his  bankrupt  publishing  house,  the 
author  of  the  apothegm  himself  explained  its  meaning. 
Natively  fond  of  strong  language,  careless  of  peccadil- 
loes, tolerant  of  all  human  frailties  though  he  was  — 
kin-making  touches  of  nature  —  his  feet  were  "mor- 
tised and  tenoned  "  in  domestic  rectitude  and  common 
morality. 

"We  cannot  live  always  on  the  cold  heights  of  the  sub- 
lime—  the  thin  air  stifles"  —  I  have  forgotten  who 
said  it.  We  cannot  flush  always  with  the  high  ardor  of  the 
signers  of  the  Declaration,  nor  remain  at  the  level  of  the 
address  at  Gettysburg,  nor  cry  continually,  "O  Beautiful! 
My  country!"  Yet,  in  the  long  dull  interspaces  between 
these  sacred  moments  we  need  some  one  to  remind  us  that 
we  are  a  nation.  For  in  the  dead  vast  and  middle  of  the 
years  insidious  foes  are  stirring  —  ansemic  refinements, 
cosmopolitan  decadencies,  the  egotistic  and  usurping 
pride  of  great  cities,  the  cold  sickening  of  the  heart  at  the 
reiterated  exposures  of  giant  fraud  and  corruption.  "W  hen 
our  countrymen  migrate  because  we  have  no  kings  or 
castles,  we  are  thankful  to  any  one  who  will  tell  us  what 
we  can  count  on.  When  they  complain  that  our  soil  lacks 
the  humanity  essential  to  great  literature,  we  are  grate- 
ful even  for  the  firing  of  a  national  joke  heard  round 
the  world.  And  when  Mark  Twain,  robust,  big-hearted, 


400    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

gifted  with  the  divine  power  to  use  words,  makes  us  all 
laugh  together,  builds  true  romances  with  prairie  fire  and 
Western  clay,  and  shows  us  that  we  are  at  one  on  all  the 
main  points,  we  feel  that  he  has  been  appointed  by  Provi- 
dence to  see  to  it  that  the  precious  ordinary  self  of  the 
Republic  shall  suffer  no  harm. 


AMERICAN  SCHOLARSHIP 

By  Paul  Shorey 

(May  11,  1911) 

To  the  many  general  causes  of  educational  unsettle- 
ment  and  confusion  in  this  "age  of  transition,"  the  United 
States  adds  one  peculiar  to  itself.  Normally,  the  higher 
educational  system  of  a  great  country  should  send  its 
roots  deep  down  into  the  national  tradition,  and  its  organs 
should  be  nicely  adjusted  to  one  another  and  to  the  func- 
tions of  the  national  life.  But  the  American  college  is  an 
accidental  development  of  colonial  copies  of  the  English 
college,  and  the  superposed  American  university,  even 
when  not  a  direct  imitation  of  the  German  university, 
is  manned  chiefly  by  professors  "made  in  Germany." 
For  the  disadvantages  of  these  anomalies,  there  is  some 
compensation  in  a  certain  breadth,  flexibility,  and  open- 
mindedness  that  characterize  the  better  type  of  Amer- 
ican scholar.  But  the  disadvantages  are  nevertheless 
very  real,  and  not  to  be  blinked.  They  may  be  summed 
up  in  the  word  maladjustment,  manifesting  itself  ex- 
ternally in  the  imperfect  coordination  of  secondary, 
collegiate,  and  university  instruction,  and  spiritually  in 
the  divorce  of  our  scholarship  and  our  science  from  cul- 
ture. There  are,  of  course,  many  other  causes  for  this  — 
specialism,  commercialism,  democracy.  But  the  chief 
cause,  perhaps,  is  the  fact  that  our  professional  scholar- 
ship has  been  in  the  past  an  importation,  not  an  indigen- 
ous growth  —  an  importation,  not  from  England,  the 
home  of  our  literature;  not  from  France,  whose  qualities 
would  best  correct  the  excesses  of  professionalism  and  the 
heavy  Teutonic  strain  in  ourselves,  but  from  Germany, 


402    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

whose  culture,  as  Goethe,  Heine,  Schopenhauer,  and 
Nietzsche  have  told  their  compatriots,  is  a  sporadic, 
feebly  rooted  flower,  choked  by  a  weedy  growth  of  over- 
specialized  erudition. 

There  is  no  remedy  for  this  state  of  affairs  in  doctrinaire 
and  revolutionary  reform  of  our  educational  machinery, 
nor  in  those  facile  denunciations  of  pedantry  with  which 
lively  writers  can  always  win  the  applause  of  a  gallery 
that  has  been  habituated  by  professors  of  the  new  ped- 
agogy to  apply  that  purely  relative  term  to  every  form  of 
exact  and  minute  scholarship.  The  fault  is  not  with  the 
seminar,  the  doctoral  dissertation,  or  the  final  examina- 
tion. These  are  convenient  and  flexible  instrumentalities 
which  the  university  professor  is  already  free  to  use  for 
the  realization  of  any  idea  to  which  he  can  win  his  stu- 
dents. It  is  the  ideals  and  aims  themselves  that  need  to  be 
liberalized,  not  revolutionized.  That  is  necessarily  a  slow 
process,  the  first  step  in  which  must  be  a  clearer  self-con- 
sciousness on  the  part  of  American  scholars  and  a  fuller 
appreciation  of  the  problem  which  the  development  of 
the  American  university  has  created  for  them.  Our  task  is 
to  re-define  and  so  far  as  may  be  harmonize  the  aims  of 
culture  and  scholarship  without  undue  concessions  to  the 
gushing  dilettante,  and  to  emancipate  ourselves  from 
slavish  subservience  to  German  influence  without  losing 
the  lessons  or  forgetting  the  debt  of  gratitude  that  we  owe 
to  Germany. 

In  practice,  the  beginning  of  such  a  reaction  shows  it- 
self in  the  increasing  proportion  of  American  students 
who  now  pursue  their  graduate  studies  at  home  instead 
of  going  to  Germany.  Our  pupils  recognize  that  the  much 
exaggerated  and  rapidly  lessening  scientific  superiority 
of  the  German  universities  is  more  than  outweighed  by 
the  possibilities  of  unity  and  continuity  of  culture,  unin- 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  103 

terrupted  contact  with  the  national  life  and  education, 
and  the  more  intelligent  and  sympathetic  personal  guid- 
ance which  the  better  American  universities  provide. 
They  see  that  our  degrees  are  somewhat  harder  to  win, 
and  infer  that  they  may  be  quite  as  well  worth  the  win- 
ning. They  are  right,  and  we  should  henceforth  reserve 
travelling  fellowships  for  holders  of  the  American  doctor- 
ate who  will  visit  the  German  universities  as  intelligent 
observers  and  critics,  and  not  abandon  themselves  in 
helpless,  open-mouthed  plasticity  to  be  moulded  into 
patterns  of  second-rate  Germans.  Men  who  go  directly 
from  the  inadequate  preparation  of  the  ordinary  minor 
college  to  the  great  European  universities  not  only  waste 
a  year  or  two  in  fumbling  endeavors  to  adjust  themselves 
to  alien  conditions,  but  convey  and  receive  totally  false 
impressions  about  American  and  European  scholarship. 
The  superiority  of  the  foreign  university  rests  almost 
wholly  on  the  severer  discipline  of  the  German  gymna- 
sium and  the  great  English  public  schools.  The  American 
university  professor,  if  competent  for  his  task,  is  aware 
of  this  difference,  makes  allowance  for  it,  and  in  the  end 
brings  a  fair  proportion  of  his  men  up  to  the  European 
standard  even  in  the  technique  of  scholarship.  There  is 
no  provision  for  this  work  in  the  European  universities. 
The  visiting  American  student,  if  exceptionally  able  and 
ambitious,  may  be  stimulated  to  remedy  his  deficiencies 
unaided.  In  a  large  proportion  of  cases  he  copies  out 
copiously  and  slavishly  lecture  notes  not  adapted  to  his 
needs,  fancying  that  he  is  storing  up  treasures  of  erudi- 
tion undreamt-of  in  America,  and  leaving  on  the  mind 
of  his  German  or  Oxford  professor  a  conviction,  which 
courtesy  vainly  endeavors  to  disguise,  that  Americans 
lack  the  very  notion  of  sincere  and  serious  scholarship. 
At  the  end  of  three  or  four  years  he  returns,  completely 


404    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

out  of  touch  with  American  life  and  American  education, 
to  teach  American  boys.  If  a  Rhodes  scholar,  he  has 
gained  an  English  intonation,  some  polish  of  manner  it 
may  be,  and  possibly  an  enlarged  and  more  discriminat- 
ing English  vocabulary.  But  he  is  no  nearer  to  an  earned 
doctor's  degree  and  professional  mastery  of  his  subject 
than  one  year  at  a  first-class  American  university  would 
have  brought  him.  If  Germany  was  his  choice,  he  may 
have  received  the  degree  which  Germany  bestows  some- 
what lightly  for  the  encouragement  of  the  alien,  and 
he  has  learned  a  foreign  language.  But  he  has  paid  a 
heavy  price  for  his  German  in  three  years'  discontin- 
uance of  the  habit  of  reading  English,  and  in  the  Teu- 
tonization  of  his  English  style.  He  has  steeped  himself, 
not  so  much  in  his  subject,  as  in  the  German  termin- 
ology and  systematic  Wissenschaft  of  his  subject,  with  the 
result  that  either  he  will  remain  for  life  the  prisoner  of 
the  system  and  the  terminology,  or,  as  sometimes  hap- 
pens, in  a  mood  of  revolt  and  reaction,  he  stops  his  sub- 
scription to  the  Selten  Erscheinende  Monatschrift  and 
takes  in  the  Bookman,  and  replaces  the  philological  hand 
apparatus  on  his  revolving  book-shelf  by  a  set  of  the 
British  poets  and  the  "Library  of  the  World's  Best  Liter- 
ature." 

It  may  be  said  that  the  outcome  of  an  American 
course  of  graduate  study  is  often  equally  futile  and  de- 
plorable. It  must  be  admitted  that  the  machine-made 
doctor  of  philosophy  often  remains  essentially  a  bar- 
barian, unread  outside  of  the  technical  literature  of  his 
speciality,  unfurnished  with  those  general  ideas  the  pos- 
session of  which  was  Taine's  criterion  of  the  educated 
man,  and  incapable  of  either  writing  or  understanding 
English  of  the  sound  tradition.  From  this  text  our  im- 
patient critics  proceed  to  a  general  onslaught  on  Ameri- 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  405 

can  scholarship  and  denunciation  of  the  Germanized 
American  university,  its  minutely  specialized  courses,  its 
seminars,  and  the  doctoral  dissertations,  the  parody  of 
whose  titles  is  a  gag  that  never  fails  with  a  popular  audi- 
ence. They  would  reform  it  altogether,  and  substitute 
for  the  idea  of  training  investigators  the  endeavor  to 
produce  teachers,  writers,  intellectual  leaders,  of  broad 
and  liberal  culture.  With  the  demand  for  the  humaniza- 
tion  of  our  scholarship  I  heartily  sympathize,  though  I 
would  accompany  it  by  a  plea  for  the  fortifying  of  our 
culture  by  a  little  more  respect  for  exact  knowledge.  It 
is  not  the  excess  of  either  erudition  or  culture,  but  their 
assumed  incompatibility  and  divorce,  from  which  our 
higher  education  is  suffering.  But  in  their  eagerness  for 
the  end,  our  literary  censors  investigate  the  disease 
superficially  and  prescribe  impossible  remedies.  They 
ignore  the  complexity  of  the  problem  and  do  scant  justice 
to  the  efforts  of  university  instructors  to  solve  it.  They 
forget  that  in  the  graduate  school,  at  any  rate,  culture 
really  is  and  must  be  a  by-product.  A  three  years'  gradu- 
ate curriculum,  devoted  ostensibly  and  mainly  to  cul- 
tural courses,  wide  reading  in  general  literature,  and 
daily  or  monthly  themes,  is  an  impossible  piece  of  edu- 
cational machinery.  The  more  serious  students  would 
revolt  at  its  aimlessness,  and  the  public  would  very  prop- 
erly want  to  know  what  the  undergraduate  course  was 
for. 

And  this  brings  us  to  the  central  difficulty  with  which 
the  American  university  professor  is  struggling,  not  quite 
so  unconsciously,  or,  if  we  take  long  views,  so  hopelessly 
as  the  genial  onlooker  assumes.  The  deficiency  of  the 
ordinary  graduate  student  not  only  in  respect  of  culture, 
but  in  the  elementary  technique  of  his  specialty,  is  due 
to  the  comparative  failure  of  collegiate  education,  that 


406    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

in  turn  to  the  lax  training  of  the  secondary  schools,  and 
that  again  to  the  low  intellectual  standards  of  a  young, 
prosperous,  commercialized  nation,  and  the  reaction  of 
the  indulgent  American  parent  against  what  he  deems 
puritanic  or  old-world  ideas  of  discipline  and  restraint. 
This  fatal  sequence  and  the  recriminations  to  which  it 
gives  rise  are  an  old  story  which  it  is  useless  to  repeat 
here.  It  may  be  freely  conceded  that  the  university,  too, 
contributes  its  share  of  errors  to  our  pedagogical  muddle. 
But  if  these  could  be  eliminated  by  the  wisdom  of  its 
critics,  the  chief  problem  would  still  remain:  the  re- 
trieval in  three  short  years  of  the  losses  and  waste  of  ten 
years  of  confused  and  misdirected  effort.  It  cannot  be 
done  without  sacrifice.  So  long  as  the  American  gradu- 
ate student  enters  the  university  unable  to  write  lucid 
English  and  ungrounded  in  the  elements  of  the  subject 
which  he  proposes  to  pursue,  he  must  work  a  little  longer 
and  a  little  harder  for  his  degree  than  he  normally  should. 
Even  so,  he  will  not  achieve  a  perfect  adjustment  of  the 
ideals  of  professional  competency  and  breadth  of  culture. 
In  the  nature  of  things  he  will  incline  to  one  side  with 
some  sacrifice  of  the  other.  The  scheme  of  the  graduate 
curriculum  is  broad  enough  to  include  both.  It  is  already 
so  administered  in  many  places  as  to  do  justice  to  the 
reasonable  claims  of  both.  The  name  seminar  need 
frighten  nobody,  so  long  as  it  is  recognized  that  a  seminar 
may  deal  with  the  literary  criticism  of  the  Greek  drama 
or  the  philosophy  of  Plato  as  well  as  with  the  text  criti- 
cism of  Pliny's  letters  or  the  syntax  of  the  Greek  verb. 
The  acceptance  of  an  occasional  doctoral  dissertation  on 
a  Greek  particle  or  the  manuscripts  of  Catullus  should 
be  no  grievance  to  the  student  of  broader  interests,  pro- 
vided he  himself  is  encouraged  and  helped  to  write,  if 
he  can,  a  readable  monograph  on  some  literary,  histori- 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  407 

cal,  or  philosophic  theme.  The  graduate  school  can  meet 
all  the  legitimate  needs  of  more  aspiring  spirits  without 
sacrificing  its  present  ideal  of  exact,  first-hand  scholar- 
ship within  a  definite  field  for  all  and  original  research  for 
some.  It  is  not  and  should  not  be  any  considerable  part 
of  its  function  to  provide  either  "inspiration"  in  the 
form  of  eloquent  popular  lectures  or  training  courses 
for  the  journalist,  the  novelist,  and  the  essayist.  These 
things,  so  far  as  they  can  be  taught  at  all,  belong  either 
in  the  second  half  of  the  collegiate  course  or  in  the 
extension  department.  The  "mere"  litterateur  should 
not  attempt  to  force  his  point  of  view  upon  the  graduate 
school.  But  if  he  can  afford  the  time  he  will  greatly  profit 
by  accepting  its  point  of  view  provisionally  and  for  one 
or  two  years.  From  the  narrowest  curriculum  he  will 
acquire  something  which  in  America  he  could  hardly  get 
in  any  other  way,  the  scholar's  conscience  and  a  clear 
conception  of  the  difference  between  first-hand  and  sec- 
ond-hand knowledge. 

These  preliminary  reserves  and  qualifications  threaten 
to  occupy  more  space  than  the  main  thesis.  But  distinguo 
is  the  first  word  of  my  philosophy  as  of  Montaigne's. 
The  undiscriminating  attribution  to  German  influence  of 
all  real  and  imaginary  defects  of  the  American  graduate 
school  and  the  systematic  exaggeration  of  the  supposed 
antithesis  between  scholarship  and  culture  can  do  no 
possible  good.  Nietzsche's  eloquent  diatribes  against  the 
excesses  of  history  and  philology  have  no  application  to 
our  conditions.  The  superior  culture  of  Oxford  or  Paris 
is  not  due  to  the  substitution  of  culture  courses  for  de- 
tailed and  precise  work.  It  is  due  to  the  background  of 
the  national  tradition  in  language  and  literature,  and  the 
controlling  consciousness  of  this  tradition  in  the  minds  of 
teachers  and  taught.    Germany  has  never  had  such  a 


408    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

tradition  and  our  dependence  on  Germany  has  pre- 
vented us  from  renewing  ours,  interrupted  by  the  condi- 
tions of  colonial  and  pioneer  life. 

The  mere  habituation  of  American  scholars  to  Ger- 
man prose,  through  their  most  impressionable  years, 
would  keep  them  from  attaining  the  certainty  of  lin- 
guistic instinct  of  a  cultivated  Englishman  or  Frenchman. 
La  prose  allemande  rCexiste  pas,  says  a  distinguished 
French  critic.  Unfortunately,  it  does  exist  for  American 
philologians  as  an  exemplar  vitiis  imitabile.  I  refer  not 
merely  to  the  omnibus  type  of  German  sentence  wittily 
described  by  De  Quincey,  Ruskin,  and  Mark  Twain,  to 
the  "something  splay"  in  the  German  language  which 
Nietzsche  quotes  from  Matthew  Arnold,  or  to  the  all- 
pervading  mixed  metaphor.  Rhetoric  is  something  larger 
than  refinements  of  style  or  diction;  it  is  psychology, 
tact,  taste.  Professor  von  Wilamowitz  is  not  only  one 
of  the  greatest  of  living  scholars,  but  in  his  way  a  man 
of  the  broadest  and  finest  culture.  But  all  his  genius  could 
not  save  Goethe  from  the  cabbage  passage  in  "  Werther," 
and  all  his  Hellenism  could  not  guard  Wilamowitz  against 
that  sophomoric  flight  of  rhetoric  about  the  Athenian 
sewers  at  the  close  of  his  "Aus  Kudathen,"  which  would 
be  as  impossible  to  a  Jebb  or  a  Gaston  Boissier  as  we 
trust  it  will  some  day  seem  to  American  scholars  of  equal 
standing. 

Style  is  only  a  symptom  of  deeper  things.  A  German- 
ized education  makes  our  scholars  strangers  to  their  own 
national  literature,  and  confuses  all  their  literary,  his- 
torical, and  cultural  perspectives.  It  may  be  doubted 
whether  literary  criticism  can  ever  rise  higher  than  its 
source  in  the  critic's  immediate  perception  of  values  in 
the  language  and  literature  to  which  he  is  born.  From 
this  must  come  the  analogies,  instincts,  standards,  that 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  409 

control  and  keep  sane  the  philological  criticism  of  other 
literatures.  The  criticism  of  German  scholars  lacks  and 
always  has  lacked  this  balance-wheel.  They  do  not  know 
their  own  literature  as  Frenchmen  and  Englishmen 
know  theirs,  nor  do  they  write  with  constant  reference 
to  it.  And  if  they  did  it  could  supply  them  no  equivalent 
of  the  poetry  of  England,  the  drama  and  the  prose  of 
France.  The  consequent  crudity  and  amateurishness  of 
their  criticism  of  life  and  letters  is  their  misfortune  and 
not  their  fault.  But  it  will  surely  be  our  fault  if,  dazzled 
by  the  prestige  of  their  learning,  we  continue  much 
longer  to  take  seriously  their  Homeric  theories,  their 
interpretations  of  the  Platonic  philosophy,  their  esti- 
mates of  Cicero  and  Virgil;  if  we  accept  as  contributions 
to  comparative  literature  articles  on  "Der  Einfluss  der 
Anakreontik  auf  Johann  Peter  Uz,"  or  the  triple  sawdust 
of  Stemplinger's  "Fortleben  der  Horazischen  Lyrik," 
and  Billeter's  "Die  Anschauungen  vora  Wesen  des 
Griechenthums";  if  we  study  Mill's  Platonism  only  at 
second  hand  in  Gomperz,  and  treat  the  Homeric  views 
of  Andrew  Lang  respectfully  only  when  they  come  back 
to  us  in  Rothe;  if  we  waste  our  students'  attention  on 
Robert's  tours  de  passe-passe  with  Mycenaean  and  Ionian 
armor,  or  on  Mulder's  equations  of  eyes  and  oysters;  if 
we  assist  the  disciples  of  Blass  in  rearing  the  baby  science 
of  prose  rhythm,  conceived  in  the  innocency  of  a  scholar 
whose  naive  surprise  of  the  cadences  of  Plato  and  Demos- 
thenes was  untempered  by  any  previous  experience  of 
De  Quincey  or  Ruskin ;  if  we  accept  the  estimates  of  re- 
viewers blind  to  the  crushing  superiority  of  Jebb's  Soph- 
ocles, Gaston  Boissier's  Cicero,  or  Croiset's  history  of 
Greek  literature,  and  acquiesce  in  the  judgment  that 
dismisses  Pater's  "Plato  and  Platonism"  as  the  trifling 
of  an  amateur,  while  treating  the  pseudoscience  of  Lutos- 


410    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

lawski  as  an  advancement  of  knowledge;  if  we  remain  to 
the  end  dependent  on  bibliographies  that  catalogue  Jane 
Austen's  "Sense  and  Sensibility"  under  Sinneswahrneh- 
mung  and  list  a  reprint  of  FitzGerald's  "Agamemnon" 
as  a  new  text  edition. 

Something  too  much  of  these  obvious  and  ungracious 
reflections.  It  is,  I  repeat,  not  the  fault  of  the  Germans 
that  the  false  historical  perspective  and  Umwerthung 
aller  Werthe  which  accompany  their  gifts  of  learning  are 
a  hindrance  and  not  a  help  to  the  heirs  of  Chaucer  and 
Tennyson.  The  remedy,  as  we  have  seen,  is  not  to  sub- 
stitute culture  courses  for  scholarship,  but  to  train  our 
scholars  at  home  as  French  and  English  scholars  are 
trained  in  an  environment  and  by  methods  that  shall 
subject  the  form  and  relate  the  content  of  their  knowl- 
edge to  the  high  tradition  of  their  own  language,  litera- 
ture, and  inherited  culture.  This  cannot  be  done  in  a 
day  or  a  generation.  For  it  will  take  a  generation  to  pre- 
pare the  teachers.  But  we  may  make  a  beginning  now  — 
with  ourselves,  as  well  as  with  our  pupils. 

Thus  far  I  have  spoken  of  our  own  special  problem  of 
the  adjustment  of  an  imported  professional  scholarship 
to  our  national  education  and  culture.  But  there  is  a 
brief  final  word  to  be  said  on  the  need  of  rescuing  scholar- 
ship itself  from  the  German  yoke.  The  public  will  sup- 
pose me  to  mean  from  German  pedantry  and  superflu- 
ous accuracy  in  insignificant  research  —  but  I  mean  in 
all  seriousness  from  German  inaccuracy.  The  disease  of 
German  scholarship,  well  indicated  by  Matthew  Arnold 
in  "God  and  the  Bible,"  has  now  infected  all  the  world. 
The  game  of  investigation,  as  played  by  its  most  bril- 
liant practitioners,  threatens  to  become  a  systematic  dis- 
semination of  error  and  perversion  of  the  feeling  for  evi- 
dence. In  a  large  proportion  of  philological  and  historical 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  411 

problems,  the  most  that  we  can  hope  to  attain  is  an  ac- 
curate collection  of  the  insufficient  evidence  and  a  clean- 
cut  statement  of  the  alternative  probabilities.  There  still 
remains  an  enormous  amount  of  this  work  to  be  done. 
Instead  of  doing  it,  the  Germanized  scholarship  of  the 
world  insists  on  "sweat-boxing"  the  evidence  and  strain- 
ing after  "vigorous  and  rigorous"  demonstration  of 
things  that  do  not  admit  of  proof.  The  method  is  openly 
avowed  and  defended  on  principle.  The  scholar  who 
lacks  the  courage  to  make  mistakes,  they  say,  will  make 
no  discoveries.  They  quote  Bacon  to  the  effect  that 
truth  emerges  more  readily  from  error  than  from  con- 
fusion, and  take  this  to  mean  that  the  systematic  ela- 
boration of  absurdity  is  the  true  philological  method. 
The  practical  results  are  deplorable.  The  chief  objec- 
tion to  hunting  for  mares'  nests  is  that  you  are  sure  to 
find  them.  But  the  quest  itself  impairs  the  reasoning 
powers.  It  obscures  in  our  teaching  and  in  the  eyes  of 
the  public  the  true  cultural  aims  of  philological  study 
by  an  excess  not  of  precision,  which  can  never  do  harm, 
but  of  that  parody  of  scientific  research  which  consists 
in  the  "pyramiding"  of  un verifiable  hypotheses.  It 
blinds  us  to  the  elementary  logical  truth  that  the  resul- 
tant probability  of  such  a  process  is  not  the  summa- 
tion but  the  fractional  product  of  the  probabilities  of 
the  separate  steps.  And  what  is  more,  the  predeter- 
mined resolve  to  achieve  results  vitiates  the  separate 
steps.  The  public  even  of  scholars  has  no  conception  of 
the  quantity  of  misstatement  now  circulating  in  ac- 
credited books  signed  by  reputable  names;  and  it  is  im- 
possible to  tell  them  because  the  enumeration  of  errors 
is  not  only  invidious  in  a  writer,  but  intolerably  weari- 
some to  the  reader.  There  are  large  fields  of  phil- 
ology in  which  we  shall  be  compelled  to  do  the  work  all 


412    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

over  again,  in  order  to  determine  the  simple  facts  of  the 
tradition  uncolored  by  the  pleas  of  advocates  with 
points  to  prove.  The  big  ambitious  books  of  the  Nordens, 
the  Heinzes,  the  Reitzensteins,  the  Joels,  the  Dummlers, 
the  Hirzels,  the  Wendlands,  and  even,  alas !  of  the  Wila- 
mowitzes  cannot  be  trusted.  They  cannot  be  safely  used 
without  laborious  verification,  and  verification  too  often 
reveals  that  the  texts  cited  are  mistranslated,  misinter- 
preted, or,  at  any  rate,  do  not  prove  the  point.  American 
scholars  have  not  wholly  escaped  this  infection.  But  either 
some  defect  of  ambition  or  a  remnant  of  Yankee  common- 
sense  makes  the  majority  of  them  immune  to  the  disease 
in  its  most  virulent  form.  There  are  compensations  in 
all  things.  It  is  sad  that  our  scholarship,  as  our  literary 
friends  so  often  remind  us,  is  hard,  thin,  dry,  matter- 
of-fact,  syntactical,  statistical,  archaeological,  and  nega- 
tive; that  it  never  rises  to  the  comprehensive  survey  and 
the  generous  elan  of  constructive  hypothesis  of  Germany, 
and  is  lacking  in  the  grace  and  charm  of  France,  the  re- 
strained emotion  and  finished  eloquence  of  England.  But 
I  console  myself  with  the  reflection  that  perhaps,  while 
we  are  growing  to  our  full  stature,  it  is  the  temporary 
mission  of  our  hardness  and  thinness  to  correct  some  of 
the  excesses  associated  with  the  admirable  qualities  that 
are  beyond  our  reach.  We  are  often  reproached  for  not 
producing  those  charming,  readable  essays  that  flow  so 
frequently  from  the  facile  pens  of  our  French  and  English 
colleagues.  Well,  Professor  Butcher's  lecture  on  Greek 
literary  criticism  is  pleasant  reading,  but  I  am  not  certain 
that  the  multiplication  of  such  lectures  would  be  a  more 
desirable  outcome  of  our  scholarship  than  are  Profes- 
sor Carroll's  dissertation  on  Aristotle's  "Poetics,"  Dr. 
Baker's  study  of  literary  criticism  in  Greek  comedy,  or 
Professor  Van  Hook's  dissertation  on  the  terminology 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  413 

of  Greek  literary  criticism.  I  open  Professor  Butcher's 
essays  at  random  and  read : 

Plato  goes  so  far  as  to  discover  a  moral  danger  in  prose  com- 
positions which  lack  rhythm  or  harmony:  to  his  mind  they 
indicate  some  disorder  within  the  soul. 

Here  is  a  testimony  to  rhythmical  prose  indeed.  It  is 
most  interesting.  Unfortunately,  Plato  says  nothing  re- 
motely resembling  what  is  here  attributed  to  him.  The 
passage  of  the  "Laws"  cited  in  support  of  the  statement 
is  completely  misunderstood.  I  open  Professor  Mackail's 
delightful  lectures  on  Greek  poetry  and  find  an  eloquent 
page  about  an  awesome  lightning  flash  which  illuminates 
an  awful  pause  before  the  retreat  of  the  Trojans.  Nothing 
could  be  more  impressive  —  if  true.  But  there  is  no  light- 
ning flash,  and  the  simile  does  not  illuminate  the  terror- 
stricken  pause  of  the  Trojans,  but  the  breathing  space 
won  by  the  Greeks  seventeen  lines  after  the  pause.  If  we 
must  choose,  I  prefer  American  thinness  and  dryness  to 
this.  We  may  pay  too  high  a  price  not  only  for  a  German 
geistreiche  Combination,  but  for  French  neatness  of  antith- 
esis and  English  romantic  sentiment.  To  adapt  the 
phrases  of  Emerson,  let  us  sit  at  home  with  might  and 
make  the  best  of  ourselves. 


LETTERS  OF  CHARLES  ELIOT  NORTON 

By  Paul  Elmer  More 
(December  4,  1913) 

One  of  the  mottoes  prefixed  to  the  second  volume 
of  these  letters 1  is  a  sentence  from  Sainte-Beuve,  which 
would  read  in  English  something  like  this:  "The  illus- 
trious writers,  the  great  poets,  scarcely  exist  without 
having  about  them  other  men,  themselves  essential 
rather  than  secondary,  great  in  their  incompleteness,  the 
equals  in  the  inner  life  of  thought  with  those  whom  they 
love,  whom  they  serve,  and  who  are  kings  by  right  of 
art."  The  words  could  not  be  more  fitting  if  they  had 
been  written  with  Norton  in  mind,  so  perfectly  do  they 
express  his  relation  to  the  artists  of  his  generation.  We 
think  of  him  first,  perhaps,  as  the  friend  of  Ruskin  and 
Carlyle,  of  Longfellow  and  Lowell,  and  of  the  other 
writers  who  were  giving  lustre  to  the  Victorian  and 
—  may  we  say?  —  Cantabrigian  age,  and  we  recall  the 
epitaph  he  once  playfully  suggested  for  himself:  "He 
had  good  friends,  whom  he  loved";  but  we  do  his  mem- 
ory wrong  if  we  regard  him  merely  as  parasite,  or  shadow, 
of  those  greater  reputations.  He  was  more  than  friend 
and  audience;  he  was  counsellor  and,  at  times,  judge. 
One  of  the  few  notes  of  personal  resentment  in  his  cor- 
respondence is  a  protest  against  a  passage  in  Ruskin's 
"Prseterita"  which  had  represented  him  as  seeking  un- 
asked the  society  of  the  more  famous  man.  Ruskin,  in- 
deed, meant  to  cast  no  slur,  and  in  the  same  book  adds 

1  Letters  of  Charles  Eliot  Norton.  With  Biographical  Comment  by  his 
Daughter  Sara  Norton  and  M.  A.  DeWolfe  Howe.  Boston:  Houghton  Mifflin 
Company.  Two  volumes,  illustrated. 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  415 

the  most  generous  praise  of  his  "first  tutor":  "Norton 
saw  all  my  weaknesses,  measured  all  my  narrownesses, 
and,  from  the  first,  took  serenely,  and  as  it  seemed  of  ne- 
cessity, a  kind  of  paternal  authority  over  me,  and  a  right 
of  guidance  —  though  the  younger  of  the  two  —  and 
always  admitting  my  full  power  in  its  own  kind." 

Something  of  that  "rectorial  power"  he  had  with 
whomsoever  he  lived,  whether  individual  or  community, 
and  from  it  came  his  honor  and  a  measure,  too,  of  bitter 
reproach.  His  letters,  as  they  are  now  published  in 
selection,  have  other  claims  to  attention,  but  their 
greatest  value  is  in  the  clear  revelation  of  the  man 
himself  to  those  who  knew  him  not  at  all  or,  like  the 
writer  of  this  essay,  knew  him  but  slightly,  and  of  the 
source  of  the  authority  which  made  him  among  his  more 
productive  contemporaries  an  egal  an  dedans.  The  op- 
portunity to  set  forth  the  nature  of  that  power  brings  a 
peculiar  pleasure,  not  without  a  sense  also  of  humility, 
to  the  present  editor  of  the  journal  which  Norton  helped 
to  found  and  into  which  so  much  of  his  character  entered. 

As  for  the  work  of  the  editors  of  these  volumes  it  is 
sufficient  to  say  that  there  is  not  a  word  of  their  own 
about  Norton,  nor  is  there  a  letter  of  his  included,  which 
would  have  given  offence  to  his  scrupulous  taste  in  such 
matters;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  evidence 
that  anything  has  been  omitted  which  is  necessary  to 
the  understanding  of  the  man  and  his  position.  Possibly 
the  interest  of  the  volumes  would  not  have  been  dimin- 
ished if  an  even  stricter  selection  had  been  exercised  in 
the  earlier  letters.  He  came  to  maturity  late,  and  it  is  the 
gravity  of  his  judgment  more  than  any  adventitious  aids 
of  fancy  or  cleverness  that  holds  our  attention. 

His  letters  in  this  respect  are  curiously  unlike  those  of 
Lowell,  with  which  one  naturally  compares  them.  After 


416    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

the  first  crude  effervescence  of  youth  Lowell  charms  us 
with  his  grace  and  keeps  us  almost  spellbound  with  the 
fecundity  of  his  wit;  we  say  that  never  was  there  a  fellow 
like  this  to  amuse  and  entertain.  But  somehow  the  in- 
terest does  not  quite  hold  to  the  end ;  we  are  a  little  irked 
to  find  that  he  never  entirely  controlled  his  own  facul- 
ties; we  never  touch  bottom  with  him,  not  so  much 
because  of  the  depth  of  his  mind  as  because  of  the  drift 
of  its  currents.  With  Norton  it  is  just  the  reverse.  We 
begin  by  thinking  him,  comparatively  at  least,  a  trifle 
dull;  but  as  we  read  on  we  are  caught  by  the  sheer  in- 
tegrity of  his  utterance;  we  are  impressed  by  the  feeling 
that  here  was  a  man  of  utter  veracity,  who  never  swerved 
aside  to  be  funny  or  wise  or  profound  or  original,  but  was 
concerned  to  say  with  unflinching  precision  just  what  he 
felt  and  thought.  No  doubt  these  virtues  are  in  a  way 
negative  and  denote  a  certain  slowness  of  imagination 
and  a  certain  lack  of  higher  spontaneity  in  the  writer, 
but  at  the  worst  we  are  not  annoyed  by  the  attempt  to 
conceal  such  deficiencies  under  a  sham  sprightliness,  and 
at  the  best  we  forget  them  by  reason  of  other  positive 
qualities.  There  is  nothing  in  this  correspondence  in  any 
way  equivalent  to  the  winged  phrases  in  which  Lowell 
describes  to  Norton  the  effect  of  Emerson's  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  oration:  "It  began  nowhere  and  ended  every- 
where, and  yet,  as  always  with  that  divine  man,  it  left 
you  feeling  that  something  beautiful  had  passed  that 
way  —  something  more  beautiful  than  anything  else, 
like  the  rising  and  setting  of  stars,"  etc.  Nor  was  it 
within  the  compass  of  Norton's  pen  to  write  any  one  of 
a  dozen  of  those  improvisations  in  which  Lowell  fairly 
takes  your  breath  away  with  the  audacity  of  his  wit.  But 
neither  was  it  within  the  scope  of  Lowell's  intelligence 
to  give  finality  to  one  of  the  commonplaces  of  experience 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  417 

with  just  such  grave  and  pondered  beauty  of  expression 
as  that  which  Norton  used  to  Leslie  Stephen  on  the  death 
of  his  brother:  "It  is  one  of  those  changes  which  alter 
the  whole  habit  and  aspect  of  life  —  shutting  up  so  many 
chambers  to  which  nobody  else  has  a  key,  increasing  the 
solitary  and  silent  part  of  life  which  grows  so  dispro- 
portionate to  the  rest  as  we  grow  old."  In  the  end  we 
suspect  that  most  readers  will  say,  as  they  close  the 
second  of  these  volumes:  Here  is  the  larger  man  and 
the  deeper  nature,  and  here,  after  all  deductions,  are  the 
finer  letters. 

But  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  Norton  was  pedantic 
or  priggish  in  his  correspondence,  or  sent  out  an  epistle 
with  the  solemn  consideration  of  a  judge  handing  down  a 
decision.  He  is  familiar  and  easy  enough  on  occasion,  and 
at  times  strong  and  picturesque.  Especially  during  and 
after  his  third  long  visit  abroad  his  letters  and  journal 
gain  in  liveliness  by  the  occasional  portraits  of  men  and 
reports  of  conversations.  Naturally,  Carlyle  is  promi- 
nent in  these,  and  he  is  presented  as  abounding  in  the 
kind  of  humorous  exaggeration  by  virtue  of  which  Norton 
always  defended  him  against  his  detractors.  One  day  it 
is  Carlyle  discoursing  on  Browning: 

So  he  went  on  till  some  one  asked  him  if  he  had  seen  Brown- 
ing lately.  "Na,"  said  he,  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye,  "but  I've 
read  the  whole  of  his  new  poem,  'The  Ring  and  the  Book,'  in 
four  volumes,  from  beginning  to  end,  without  omitting  a  word, 
and  a  most  extraordinary  production  it  is  —  a  work  of  great 
ingenuity  and  full  of  verra  strikin'  sentences.  I  met  Browning, 
indeed,  in  Piccadilly  the  other  day,  and  I  told  him  I  'd  read  his 
poem  from  the  first  word  thereof  way  to  the  last,  and  he  said 
to  me,  quickly,  'Well!  Well?'  and  I  replied  that  I  thought  it  a 
book  of  prodigious  talent  and  unparalleled  ingenuity;  but  then, 


418    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

I  suppose  trusting  to  the  sincerity  of  my  own  thoughts,  I  went 
on  to  say  that  of  all  the  strange  books  produced  on  this 
distracted  airth,  by  any  of  the  sons  of  Adam,  this  one  was 
altogether  the  strangest  and  the  most  preposterous  in  its  con- 
struction; and  where,  said  I,  do  ye  think  to  find  the  eternal 
harmonies  in  it?  Browning  did  not  seem  to  be  pleased  with 
my  speech,  and  he  bade  me  good  morning." 

At  another  time  it  is  Carlyle's  swift  judgment  of 
Sumner,  whom  he  defines  as  "the  most  completely 
nothin'  of  a  mon  that  ever  crossed  my  threshold  — 
naught  whatsoever  in  him  or  of  him  but  wind  and 
vanity."  And  again  it  is  Carlyle  on  Carlyle,  expressing 
a  fundamental  truth  about  himself  which  some  of  his 
critics  have  still  to  learn: 

While  we  were  sitting  by  the  fireside,  before  we  left  the  house 
this  afternoon,  he  said,  speaking  of  himself,  —  "I've  been 
much  misunderstood  in  my  time,  and  very  lately  now  I  was 
readin'  an  article  on  Froude's  view  of  Ireland  in  the  last  number 
of  Macmillan,  written  by  a  man  whom  ye  may  have  seen,  one 

,  a  willow  pattern  of  a  man,  very  shrill  and  voluble,  but 

harmless,  a  pure  herbivorous,  nay,  graminivorous  creature, 
and  he  says  with  many  terms  of  compliment  that  there's  'a 
great  and  venerable  author'  who's  done  infinite  harm  to  the 
world  by  preachin'  the  gospel  that  Might  makes  Right,  which  is 
verra  precise  contrary  to  the  truth  I  hold  and  have  endeavored 
to  set  forth,  which  is  simply  that  Right  makes  Might.  And  I 
well  remember  when,  in  my  younger  days,  the  force  of  this 
truth  first  dawned  on  me,  it  was  a  sort  of  Theodicee  to  me,  a 
clew  to  many  facts  to  which  I  have  held  on  from  that  day." 

But  it  is  Norton  himself  we  come  to  seek  in  this  cor- 
respondence, rather  than  Carlyle  or  another,  and  Nor- 
ton's place  as  the  last  representative  of  a  remarkable 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  419 

generation  —  ultimus  Novorum  Anglicanorum.  Some  day 
we  shall  appreciate  New  England  literature  at  its  true 
value.  But  before  that  day  we  must  learn  to  distinguish 
between  what  is  provincial  and  what  is  merely  local.  If 
anything  is  provincial  it  is  to  incorporate  such  men  as 
the  old  Scottish  poets  in  the  main  body  of  English  liter- 
ature, as  is  commonly  done  in  manuals  of  the  subject, 
and  to  relegate  the  Massachusetts  writers  to  an  appendix, 
if  they  are  mentioned  at  all,  as  though  they  were  foreign 
to  the  spirit  of  the  language  in  which  they  wrote.  In  one 
of  his  letters  from  London,  Lowell  tells  of  a  Scotsman 
who  "had  the  ill-manners"  to  compliment  him  on  his 
English:  "Why,  I  shouldn't  know  you  weren't  an 
Englishman.  Where  did  you  get  it?"  Lowell's  was  the 
reproof  valiant.  "  I  could  n't  resist,"  he  says,  "and  an- 
swered with  a  couple  of  verses  from  a  Scottish  ballad  — 

'  I  got  it  in  my  mither's  wame, 
Whaur  ye  'II  get  never  the  like! ' 

He  will  never  compliment  me  again,  I  fear."  What- 
ever justification  there  may  be  for  separating  off  the 
New  England  group  lies  rather  in  their  cosmopolitanism. 
It  is  true  that  they  showed  symptoms  of  a  weakening  at 
the  root  by  their  too  ready  submission  to  influences 
from  Germany  and  Spain  and  Italy,  but  in  the  main 
they  were  faithful  inheritors  of  one  of  the  dominant 
British  traditions.  Through  all  the  changes  that  inevi- 
tably come  with  the  passage  of  two  hundred  years,  they 
still  remembered  the  voice  of  Bunyan  and  Baxter  and 
Marvell  and  Herbert  and  Wither  and  the  others  to 
whom  their  fathers  had  hearkened  at  the  time  of  the 
great  exodus.  They  created  no  one  piece  quite  of  the  first 
rank  in  the  realm  of  the  imagination,  but  the  body  of 
their  work,  when  the  final  account  is  made,  will  stand 


420    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

out  honorably  in  the  general  production  of  the  Victorian 
era,  and  the  spirit  which  controlled  them  and  which 
rises  from  their  books  as  a  kind  of  fine  and  fragrant  exhal- 
ation, will  be  recognized  as  one  of  the  very  precious 
things  in  the  history  of  the  world. 

And  Norton  himself  was  fully  aware  of  the  beauty 
and  meaning  of  that  tradition  into  which  he  was  born. 
No  doubt,  in  the  course  of  his  long  life  he  said  many  hard 
things  about  America,  speaking  sometimes  not  alto- 
gether wisely.  Like  others  of  his  generation,  he  was 
caught  up  by  the  enthusiasm  of  the  years  when  the 
country  was  moved  to  its  depths  by  a  passionate  idea, 
and  had  it  not  been  for  ill  health  he  would  have  fought 
in  the  Civil  War  with  the  soldiers  of  his  State.  But  after 
the  war  he  was  never  in  sympathy  with  certain  marked 
tendencies  of  democracy  and  never  hesitated  to  express 
his  opinion.  "  I  have  been  too  much  of  an  idealist  about 
America,"  he  wrote,  near  the  end  of  his  life,  "had  set  my 
hopes  too  high,  had  formed  too  fair  an  image  of  what 
she  might  become.  Never  had  nation  such  an  oppor- 
tunity, she  was  the  hope  of  the  world."  This  disillusion 
was  in  part  due  to  his  fastidious  social  sense,  sharpened 
by  the  contrast  of  America  with  the  large  opportunities 
he  had  enjoyed.  Society  was  to  him  "the  very  rarest 
and  best  thing  that  the  world  proper  can  give  us.  It  is 
the  thing  that  our  modern  materialism  is  largely  killing 
out  —  that  is,  in  its  highest  form,  the  society  that  bears 
witness  to  leisure  and  culture,  and  good  breeding,  made 
up  of  men  who  though  versed  in  affairs,  are  still  idealists 
and  lovers  of  poetry."  This  was  the  idea  he  had  in  mind, 
no  doubt,  when  he  began  a  lecture  on  the  word  "gentle- 
man" before  a  large  class  with  the  grave  pleasantry: 
"None  of  you,  probably,  has  ever  seen  a  gentleman." 
Such  sentiments  and  words  were  not  always  taken  kindly, 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  421 

and  when,  as  at  the  time  of  the  Spanish  War,  he  did  not 
hesitate  to  expose  publicly  the  mixture  of  hypocrisy 
and  thoughtlessness  that  entered  into  the  popular  furor, 
resentment  against  him  became  almost  a  mark  of  loyalty 
to  the  country.  Opinions  may  still  vary  in  regard  to  his 
tilt  with  Senator  Hoar;  there  are  those  who  still  think  he 
was  rightly  rebuked  for  "the  habit  of  bitter  and  sneer- 
ing speech";  but  these,  we  may  suspect,  are  not  many. 
Reading  the  letters  of  Norton  and  Senator  Hoar  side 
by  side,  most  of  us  to-day  will  feel  that  honor  and  truth 
are  rather  on  the  side  of  Norton,  and  his  address  to  the 
Cambridge  Club,  which,  in  a  garbled  report,  called  forth 
the  storm  of  reproach,  will  seem  to-day  the  memorable 
utterance  of  a  calm  and  virile  patriotism.  Nor  should  it 
be  forgotten  that  the  address  ended  with  the  strong 
words,  "Nil  desperandum  de  republican  Norton  himself 
did,  in  fact,  never  despair.  Many  times  in  his  letters  he 
expresses  his  faith  in  the  essential  soundness  of  the 
people,  and  as  he  grew  older  his  confidence  in  the  destiny 
of  his  country  increased  rather  than  diminished.  It  is 
notable  that  the  architecture  of  the  World's  Fair  at 
Chicago  was  to  him  a  magnificent  achievement  and  a 
greater  promise,  and  that  from  the  city  itself  he  could 
draw  happy  auguries  for  the  future  of  America.  A 
Brahmin  of  New  England  who  can  admire  Chicago  is 
not  quite  lost  to  virtue. 

But  withal,  whether  for  his  credit  or  discredit,  it  must 
be  admitted  that  Norton  stood  before  the  country  and 
exercised  the  office  of  critic  as  the  product  of  a  particular 
time  and  place.  He  was  of  Cambridge,  the  earlier  Cam- 
bridge which  was,  with  Concord,  one  of  the  eyes  of  New 
England,  the  Greece  of  Greece,  so  to  speak;  and  this 
position  he  never  forgot.  Again  and  again  in  his  letters 
he  refers  to  the  exceptional  character  of  the  generation 


422    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

in  which  his  own  life  began.  "  I  believe,  indeed,"  he  says 
once,  writing  at  the  end  of  the  century,  "  that  the  very 
pleasantest  little  oasis  of  space  and  time  was  that  of 
New  England  from  about  the  beginning  of  the  century 
to  about  1825  (he  himself  was  born  in  1827).  The  spirit 
of  that  time  was  embodied  in  Emerson,  in  Longfellow, 
in  Holmes,  and  in  Lowell.  It  was  an  inexperienced  and 
youthful  spirit,  but  it  was  a  happy  one;  it  had  the  charm 
of  youth,  its  hope,  its  simplicity,  its  sweetness."  He 
might  have  added,  as  his  reader  no  doubt  added,  that 
he,  too,  was  one  of  the  bearers  of  that  spirit  —  sacra 
fero  ingenti  percussus  amore  —  though,  for  the  hopeful- 
ness of  youth,  he  brought  other  qualities.  Innumerable 
forces  of  inheritance  made  him  what  he  was.  His  an- 
cestor, John  Norton,  named  for  his  more  noted  uncle, 
one  of  the  four  famous  Johns  (Cotton,  Norton,  Wilson, 
and  Davenport),  took  charge  of  the  parish  of  Hingham 
in  1678.  In  the  same  year  he  published  a  poem,  being 
nothing  other  than  a  "Funeral  Elogy,  Upon  that  Patron 
of  Virtue,  the  truly  pious,  peerless  &  matchless  Gentle- 
woman, Mrs.  Anne  Bradstreet."  In  1897  our  Norton 
edited  the  poems  of  the  matchless  gentlewoman,  and  in 
his  introduction  wrote  of  her  with  more  than  his  usual 
freedom  and  intimacy: 

It  struck  me  that  there  would  be  something  of  quaint  appro- 
priateness in  my  writing,  at  this  long  interval,  in  regard  to  her 
whose  praises  he  (John  Norton)  had  sung,  and  that  the  act 
would  not  be  without  a  certain  piety  toward  my  ancestor. 
And,  further,  I  reflected,  that  as  I  could  trace  my  descent  in 
one  line  directly  from  Governor  Thomas  Dudley,  the  father  of 
Mrs.  Bradstreet,  and  as  portraits  of  her  brother,  Governor  Jo- 
seph Dudley,  and  his  wife,  looked  down  on  me  every  day  while 
I  sat  at  breakfast  and  dinner,  she,  as  my  Aunt  many  times  re- 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  423 

moved,  might  not  unjustly  have  a  claim  upon  me  for  such  token 
of  respect  to  her  memory  as  had  been  asked  of  me.  .  .  .  She  cher- 
ished in  herself  and  in  her  children  the  things  of  the  mind  and 
of  the  spirit;  and  if  such  memory  as  her  verses  have  secured  for 
her  depend  rather  on  the  circumstance  of  a  woman's  writing 
them  at  the  time  when  she  did,  and  in  the  place  where  she 
lived,  than  upon  their  poetic  worth,  it  is  a  memory  honorable 
to  her,  and  it  happily  preserves  the  name  of  a  good  woman, 
among  whose  descendants  has  been  more  than  one  poet  whose 
verses  reflect  lustre  on  her  own.  (Through  one  of  her  children 
she  is  the  ancestress  of  Richard  Henry  Dana;  through  another, 
of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes.) 

From  a  daughter  of  John  Norton,  married  to  John 
Quincy,  were  descended  John  Adams  and  John  Quincy 
Adams.  In  the  direct  male  line  came  Andrews  Norton, 
who  in  1811  was  appointed  a  tutor  at  Harvard  and  later 
professor  of  sacred  literature.  In  1821  he  married  Catha- 
rine Eliot  (whence  the  relationship  with  President  Eliot), 
and  soon  bought  the  house  with  some  fifty  acres  of  land 
in  Cambridge  known  as  Shady  Hill.  In  that  quiet  home, 
which  was  to  welcome  so  many  of  the  great  scholars  and 
writers  of  the  world,  and  whose  gracious  courtesies  and 
dignities  so  many  Harvard  men  still  cherish  in  memory 
as  a  possession  equal  in  value  to  any  learning,  Charles 
Eliot  Norton,  one  of  four  children  who  grew  to  maturity, 
was  born,  and  there,  after  many  years  and  many  labors, 
laid  down  his  life. 

By  every  right  of  tradition  Norton  belonged  with  the 
group  of  scholars  and  poets  who  just  preceded  him  in 
birth,  and  he  belonged  with  them  also  by  virtue  of  his 
own  accomplishments.  When  we  consider  the  work  of 
that  generation  it  seems  as  if  we  saw  the  energy  of  a 
strong  people,  nourished  through  long  discipline  and 


424    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

austere  abstentions,  now  suddenly  freed  from  repression 
and  displaying  itself  in  manifold,  and  all  too  brief,  ex- 
pansion. Each  man  had  his  particular  share  in  that  ac- 
tivity: to  one  it  was  the  exercise  of  wit,  to  another  the 
sentiment  of  home  and  hearth,  to  another  the  comfort  of 
religion,  to  another  the  recreation  of  the  past,  to  another 
the  critical  judgment,  to  another  the  symbolism  of  a 
brooding  imagination,  to  another  the  freedom  of  nature, 
to  another  the  justification  of  the  untrammelled  spirit. 
Now  it  must  be  admitted  that  in  none  of  these  fields  was 
Norton  quite  eminent;  even  as  a  critic  his  writing  falls 
below  Whipple's,  who  was  nevertheless  in  every  way  a 
smaller  man  than  he.  It  is  not  unlikely  that  the  melan- 
choly which  shows  itself  occasionally  in  his  letters  was  in 
some  small  measure  due  to  the  consciousness  of  these  defi- 
ciencies. So  he  writes  one  day  to  Lowell:  "Except  for 
George,  I  have  been  very  solitary.  From  year  to  year  I 
seem  to  myself  to  grow  more  and  more  silent,  and  to  ex- 
press less  of  what  is  in  my  soul.  I  should  like  to  have  the 
power  of  expression  —  at  least  long  enough  to  give  form 
and  utterance  to  a  few  of  the  deeper  conceptions  of  Life 
and  its  significance  and  uses  which  come  to  one  as  one 
grows  old  and  draws  the  lessons  from  his  own  experience." 
It  is  true,  as  he  says,  that  he  never  embodied  his  wisdom 
of  experience  in  literary  form,  but  this  wisdom  is  precisely 
what  he  stood  for  among  his  contemporaries,  and  just 
because  we  feel  this  in  his  letters  we  shall  treasure  them. 
He  was,  in  the  deepest  sense  of  the  word,  the  man  of  cul- 
ture, the  ripe  scholar,  to  whom  the  lessons  of  the  past  had 
become  a  personal  experience.  To  the  multiform  flower- 
ing of  the  time  he  brought  the  true  cosmopolitanism. 

But  he  brought  also  with  that  culture,  and  this  was  his 
finest  gift,  a  peculiar  virtue  of  inheritance.  More  than 
any  other  man  of  his  group,  he  represented  the  naked 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  425 

New  England  conscience  and  its  tenacity  of  character. 
It  may  seem  that  his  powers  were  manifested  chiefly  in 
negation.  To  the  individual,  and  particularly  to  the 
young  student  who  showed  promise  of  achievement,  he 
could  be  generous  of  help  and  encouragement.  But  in 
relation  to  the  community  at  large  he  stood  undeniably 
as  critic  and  check;  and  this  attitude  was  often  deeply 
resented.  What  has  this  man  done,  people  would  ask  in 
a  tone  of  cavilling  rebellion,  that  he  should  set  himself 
up  as  judge  over  others?  Well,  the  question  was  not  un- 
natural; yet  is  not  character  always  in  some  way  nega- 
tive? Is  it  not  of  its  very  essence  to  act  as  a  check  upon 
the  impulsive  temperament,  and  even  upon  the  ranging 
enthusiasms  of  the  soul?  And  especially  in  the  hour  of 
expansive  liberty  that  came  to  New  England  when  it  had 
broken  from  the  bondage  of  religion,  it  was  desirable  that 
the  principle  of  restraint,  broadened  indeed  by  contact 
with  the  world,  but  not  weakened  or  clouded,  should 
have  had  its  voice  and  embodiment.  On  the  ship  which 
brought  Norton  home  from  Europe  in  May  of  1873  Emer- 
son also  sailed,  and  we  have  in  Norton's  journal  a  record 
of  his  wonderful  conversation,  with  the  journalist's  com- 
ment and  criticism.  For  one  who  reflects  on  the  later 
course  of  New  England  and  America  these  are  memorable 
pages. 

Emerson  was  the  greatest  talker  in  the  ship's  company. 
He  talked  with  all  men,  and  yet  was  fresh  and  zealous  for  talk 
at  night.  His  serene  sweetness,  the  pure  whiteness  of  his  soul, 
the  reflection  of  his  soul  in  his  face,  were  never  more  apparent 
to  me;  but  never  before  in  intercourse  with  him  had  I  been  so 
impressed  with  the  limits  of  his  mind.  His  optimistic  philos- 
ophy has  hardened  into  a  creed,  with  the  usual  effects  of  a  creed 
in  closing  the  avenues  of  truth.  ...  He  refuses  to  believe  in 


426    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

disorder  or  evil.  Order  is  the  absolute  law;  disorder  is  but  a 
phenomenon.  .  .  . 

But  such  inveterate  and  persistent  optimism,  though  it  may 
show  only  its  pleasant  side  in  such  a  character  as  Emerson's,  is 
dangerous  doctrine  for  a  people.  It  degenerates  into  fatalistic 
indifference  to  moral  considerations  and  to  personal  responsi- 
bilities; it  is  the  root  of  much  of  the  irrational  sentimentalism 
in  our  American  politics.  .  .  . 

Never  were  truer  words  put  on  paper.  The  pure 
whiteness  of  Emerson's  soul  is,  when  all  has  been  reck- 
oned up,  the  finest  thing  that  New  England  has  given 
to  the  world;  but  in  the  society  for  which  he  ministered 
as  a  high  priest  of  ecstatic  vision,  there  was  a  place  also, 
an  indispensable  place,  for  the  questioner  who  stood  for 
the  traditional  New  England  conscience  and  sense  of 
evil.  We  shall  do  well  to  honor  Norton  in  our  memory  as 
one  who  through  all  spiritual  temptations  kept  his  feet 
firmly  planted  on  the  bedrock  of  character. 

The  winds  of  folly  blew  about  him  as  they  blow  about 
us,  the  dust  of  pedantries  smote  his  eyes,  cant  and  sen- 
timentalism fouled  his  air,  but  he  held  to  his  course  un- 
moved, cherishing  always  in  his  heart  what  is  lovely  and 
of  good  report,  a  faithful  teacher,  to  whom  were  well  ap- 
plied the  words  of  the  poet  who  had  been  the  chief  study 
of  his  life: 

"  Felice  te,  che  si  parli  a  tua  posta." 


FAMILIAR  QUOTATIONS 

By  A.  D.  Notes 

(March  25,  1915) 

Bartlett's  "Familiar  Quotations"  l  is  one  of  those 
books  which  occupy  a  place  by  themselves  in  the  library 
of  well-read  men.  It  was  the  labor  of  a  lifetime,  and  it 
was  a  labor  of  love.  First  compiled  as  long  ago  as  1855, 
this  "collection  of  passages,  phrases,  and  proverbs, 
traced  to  their  sources  in  ancient  and  modern  literature," 
was  constantly  enlarged.  The  duties  of  senior  partner 
in  an  important  publishing  house  did  not  divert  Mr. 
Bartlett  from  his  interesting  avocation.  The  ninth  edi- 
tion, published  in  1891,  when  the  author  had  reached  the 
age  of  seventy-one,  was  announced  by  him  as  his  final 
revision;  or,  as  he  modestly  put  it,  the  volume  with  that 
edition  "closed  its  tentative  life." 

Bartlett  died  in  1905;  twenty -four  years  have,  there- 
fore, elapsed  since  his  own  last  revision  of  the  book,  and 
ten  since  the  author's  death.  During  such  a  lapse  of 
time,  not  only  are  new  "familiar  quotations"  certain  to 
enter  the  field  of  literary  and  popular  favor,  but  quota- 
tions as  old  as  those  already  in  the  collection,  as  familiar, 
and  yet  overlooked  by  the  collector,  will  be  brought  to 
the  attention  of  readers,  and  the  process  of  "tracing  to 
their  sources"  the  well-known  passages  and  phrases  will 
be  extended.  Revision  of  Bartlett's  own  last  edition, 
such  as  is  undertaken  in  the  volume  under  review,  was, 
therefore,  timely,  and  the  work  has  produced  some  tan- 
gible results.    How  far  it  can  be  said  fully  to  have  per- 

1  Familiar  Quotations.    By  John  Bartlett.   Tenth  edition;  revised  and  en- 
larged by  Nathan  Haskell  Dole.  Boston :  Little,  Brown  &  Co. 


428    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

formed  the  task  of  rounding  out,  completing,  and  bring- 
ing up  to  date  the  collection  as  it  left  the  author's  hands, 
is  a  question  which  will  require  careful  examination,  both 
of  the  old  and  the  new  edition. 

Nobody  knows  better  than  readers  who  have  for  years 
used  Barlett  as  a  vade  mecum  that  the  title  "Familiar 
Quotations"  is  far  from  describing  the  bulk  of  the  con- 
tents of  his  book.  In  the  preface  to  his  own  ninth  and 
last  edition,  Bartlett  remarks  that  "numberless  curious 
and  happy  turns,  from  orators  and  poets,  have  knocked 
at  the  door,  and  it  was  hard  to  deny  them;  but  to  admit 
these  simply  on  their  own  merits,  without  assurance  that 
the  reader  would  recognize  them  as  old  friends,  was  aside 
from  the  purpose  of  this  collection."  The  collector,  how- 
ever, consistently  disregarded  his  own  criterion,  and  the 
reader  is  glad  of  it.  The  words,  phrases,  and  sayings 
that  all  the  world  knows,  and  for  a  search  of  whose  au- 
thorship or  pedigree  a  book  of  this  sort  is  invaluable,  are 
in  his  collection,  and  readily  traced  through  his  very 
copious  index.  But  it  would  not  be  overstating  the  case 
to  say  that  quotations  which  will  strictly  answer  to  his 
title  make  up  possibly  only  a  tenth  part  of  the  contents 
of  Bartlett's  last  edition.  The  rest  consists  of  what  might 
more  accurately  be  called  "Striking  Quotations,"  or 
"Characteristic  Quotations,"  or  "Apposite  Quotations." 
But  these  are  so  admirably  selected  that  no  reader  would 
willingly  dispense  with  them.  Anthologies  of  the  right 
sort  are  vastly  more  readable  than  dictionaries,  and  the 
fact  that  Bartlett  does  not  live  up  severely  to  the  title 
of  his  book  explains  the  charm  of  it. 

Mr.  Nathan  Haskell  Dole,  who  has  undertaken  the 
work  of  revision  for  the  tenth  edition,  does  not  pretend 
to  apply  the  rule  as  rigidly  as  Bartlett  professed  to  do. 
His  preface  merely  assures  us  that  selections  from  older 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  429 

authors  have  been  filled  out,  and  that  new  authors  "  are 
represented  by  passages  which  have  met  with  the  seal 
of  popular  approval  and  are  distinctly  worthy  of  per- 
petuation." This  does  not  necessarily  mean  "Familiar 
Quotations,"  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  four  pages  of 
Whitman  (whom  Bartlett  did  not  quote  at  all) ,  the  five 
extracts  newly  introduced  from  Gladstone,  the  page  of 
Thoreau,  —  not  to  mention  a  dozen  other  writers,  in- 
cluding Stevenson,  —  are  made  up  entirely  of  citations 
which  may  interest  the  general  reader,  but  which  are 
not  in  the  least  familiar  to  him.  In  the  two  pages  added 
under  Longfellow,  "Ships  that  pass  in  the  night"  is  per- 
haps the  only  widely  known  passage;  Bartlett  had  all  the 
rest  that  would  be  recognized  at  sight. 

This  latitude  in  applying  the  test  has  not  prevented 
Mr.  Dole  from  adding  numerous  really  familiar  quota- 
tions overlooked  by  Bartlett,  and  still  others  from  writers 
not  in  vogue  during  Bartlett's  time.  A  good  many  of  these 
had  been  included  in  other  collections  published  since 
Bartlett's  own  last  edition;  but  that  was  no  reason  for 
not  including  them  in  the  present  revision.  Carlyle's 
"respectable  professors  of  the  dismal  science,"  apropos 
of  the  political  economists,  his  "unspeakable  Turk," 
from  a  paper  of  1831,  and  his  remark  on  the  press  as  the 
"fourth  estate,"  should  have  been  found  by  Bartlett  — 
though  it  will  be  observed  that  Mr.  Dole  does  not  quote 
the  last-named  passage  correctly,  nor  call  attention  to 
the  fact  that  Carlyle  virtually  repeats  Macaulay's  "the 
gallery  in  which  the  reporters  sit  has  become  a  fourth 
estate  of  the  realm,"  published  a  dozen  years  earlier. 
Bartlett  had  overlooked  the  extract  from  Macaulay 
entirely,  and  it  appears  without  cross-reference  in  the 
new  edition. 

Two  other  quotations  from  Carlyle  —  the  definition 


430    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

of  genius  as  "the  transcendent  capacity  of  taking  trou- 
ble," from  the  chapter  on  Frederick  the  Great's  father, 
and  the  description  of  Parliamentary  debates  as  ad- 
dressed to  "twenty-seven  millions,  mostly  fools"  —  are 
rightly  added  to  Bartlett's  citations,  especially  since  the 
first  of  them  is  usually  quoted  inaccurately  as  "capacity 
for  infinite  painstaking."  The  old  edition  had  missed 
Disraeli's  "I  will  sit  down  now,  but  the  time  will  come 
when  you  will  hear  me";  "The  right  honorable  gentle- 
man caught  the  Whigs  bathing  and  walked  away  with 
their  clothes";  his  "Sophisticated  rhetorician,  inebri- 
ated with  the  exuberance  of  his  own  verbosity"  —  all  of 
which  Mr.  Dole  incorporates,  and  all  of  which  are  un- 
doubtedly familiar.  Lincoln's  "It  is  not  best  to  swap 
horses  while  crossing  the  river"  is  from  a  duly  reported 
speech,  which  Bartlett  had  overlooked.  Joel  Chandler 
Harris  now  appears  for  the  first  time,  and  "Brer  Fox,  he 
lay  low,"  will  meet  the  severest  test. 

"He  chortled  in  his  joy"  and  "'The  time  has  come/ 
the  Walrus  said,  'to  speak  of  many  things,'"  were  pos- 
sibly not  so  familiar  in  1891  as  now,  though  "Alice  in 
WTonderland  "  had  long  been  in  print,  even  then.  W.  S. 
Gilbert's  "I  am  the  cook  and  the  captain  bold,"  "The 
policeman's  lot  is  not  a  happy  one,"  and  "To  let  the 
punishment  fit  the  crime,"  are  certainly  familiar  quota- 
tions; even  Bartlett  probably  ignored  them  because  of 
the  curious  notion  of  his  day  that  Gilbert  was  not  litera- 
ture, but  comic  opera.  As  for  Mr.  Roosevelt's  "square 
deal"  and  "strenuous  life"  aphorisms,  they  saw  the  light 
long  after  Bartlett's  own  last  edition.  Mr.  Dole  judges 
rightly  in  including  them,  with  the  date  and  occasion  of 
their  utterance.  He  might  have  hunted  up  also  the  first 
allusion  to  "muckraking,"  "undesirable  citizens,"  and 
"malefactors  of  great  wealth,"  to  which  nobody  would 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  431 

at  present  refuse  a  place;  any  more  than  he  would,  since 
last  July,  to  Dr.  von  Bethmann-Hollweg's  "Just  for  a 
scrap  of  paper"  —  so  rapidly  do  Familiar  Quotations 
accumulate. 

The  editor  of  the  new  edition,  then,  makes  good  his 
promise  of  amplifying  and  supplementing  Bartlett's  last 
edition  with  other  undoubtedly  familiar  citations.  In  a 
number  of  his  additions,  he  has  rescued  passages  which 
Bartlett  himself  would  presumably  have  placed  on  the 
list,  had  they  not  escaped  his  search  or  memory.  But 
while  recognizing  Mr.  Dole's  actual  amplifications,  it  is 
also  possible  to  cite  a  fairly  substantial  list  of  unques- 
tionably Familiar  Quotations,  even  from  classic  English 
writers,  omitted  by  Bartlett  and  not  included  in  this 
edition. 

In  spite  of  the  recognized  scope  and  fulness  of  Bart- 
lett's collection,  the  experienced  reader  will  often  be 
most  impressed  with  the  collector's  inexplicable  forget- 
fulness  of  some  of  the  best-known  sayings  of  some  of  the 
best-known  authors.  Few  writers  with  the  gift  of  tren- 
chant aphorism  are  more  widely  known  or  more  habitu- 
ally quoted  than  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  and  Dr.  Benjamin 
Franklin,  and  the  citations  actually  collected  by  Bartlett 
prove  that  he  carefully  examined  "Boswell's  Life"  and 
"Poor  Richard."  This  being  so,  one  wonders  what  curi- 
ous perversity  excluded  from  the  "Familiar  Quotations" 
such  remarks  of  the  London  philosopher  as  "I  have  al- 
ways said,  the  first  Whig  was  the  Devil,"  "Marriages 
would  in  general  be  as  happy,  if  not  more  so,  if  they  were 
all  made  by  the  Lord  Chancellor,"  and  "All  theory  is 
against  the  freedom  of  the  will,  all  experience  for  it" 
(these  from  Boswell);  "That  stroke  of  death  which 
eclipsed  the  gaiety  of  nations,"  from  the  remark  on  Gar- 
rick  in  the  "Life  of  Edmund  Smith";  "Excise,  a  hateful 


432    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

tax  levied  upon  commodities,  and  adjudged  not  by  the 
common  judges  of  property,  but  wretches  hired  by  those 
to  whom  excise  is  paid  "  (from  the  celebrated  Dictionary) ; 
not  to  mention  the  famous  reply  to  the  lady  who  asked 
why  the  lexicographer  defined  pastern  as  the  knee  of  the 
horse  —  "Ignorance,  madam,  pure  ignorance."  These 
are  of  the  essence  of  Familiar  Quotations;  but  Bartlett 
passed  them  over  in  favor  of  two  or  three  score  of  far 
less  well-known  passages,  and  so  does  the  present  editor. 

As  for  Franklin,  it  is  true  that  a  good  many  of  "Poor 
Richard's  "  proverbs  were  from  the  common  stock  of  past 
generations.  But  that  is  also  true  of  those  which  Bart- 
lett selects,  and  no  aphorisms  are  either  better  known 
or  more  peculiarly  characteristic  of  Franklin's  American 
shrewdness  than  "One  to-day  is  worth  two  to-morrows"; 
"Many  have  been  ruined  by  buying  good  pennyworths"; 
"What  maintains  one  vice  would  bring  up  two  children"; 
"If  you  would  know  the  value  of  money,  go  and  try  to 
borrow  some"  —  all  of  which,  with  others  nearly  as 
familiar,  are  lacking  in  the  latest  edition,  as  they  were 
in  the  editions  which  preceded. 

The  old  and  the  new  editions  both  devote  121  pages  to 
selections  from  Shakespeare,  and  the  pages  are  fascinat- 
ing reading.  Yet  one  might  have  expected  to  find  among 
them  "It  is  a  man's  office,  but  not  yours";  "What's  the 
matter,  that  you  have  such  a  February  face?"  "Refor- 
mation in  a  flood";  "Talk  with  a  man  out  at  a  window  — 
a  proper  saying!"  "An  two  men  ride  of  a  horse,  one 
must  ride  behind."  These  singular  omissions  from  so 
perfectly  familiar  a  source  possibly  render  it  less  surpris- 
ing that  Bartlett,  and  with  him  the  revised  edition  of  his 
book,  pass  over  in  the  Old  Testament  citations  two  such 
constantly  quoted  sayings  as  "The  thunder  of  the  cap- 
tains and  the  shouting,"  from  Job,  and  "If  I  do  not 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  433 

remember  thee,  let  my  tongue  cleave  to  the  roof  of  my 
mouth,"  from  the  137th  Psalm. 

As  to  well-known  passages  of  more  recent  origin,  over- 
looked by  Bartlett,  I  have  shown  to  what  extent  the  new 
edition  has  incorporated  them.  There  is  nevertheless  a 
considerable  number  of  omissions  which  have  escaped 
the  notice  of  the  reviser.  Mr.  Dole,  in  his  preface,  names 
Lowell  as  one  author  selections  from  whom  have  been 
filled  out  extensively;  and  in  fact,  two  pages  of  citations 
are  added.  These  are  mostly  of  the  less  familiar  order  — 
which  makes  it  a  little  singular  that  not  only  Bartlett, 
but  his  later  editor,  should  have  passed  over  two  such 
well-known  extracts  from  the  "Biglow  Papers"  as  these: 

"  'T  ain't  a  knowin'  kind  of  cattle 
That  is  ketched  with  mouldy  corn," 


and 


1  It  takes  a  mind  like  Dannel's,  fact,  ez  big  ez  all  ou'doors, 
To  find  out  that  it  looks  like  rain  arter  it  fairly  pours." 


There  are  other  omissions  from  more  celebrated  mod- 
ern authors.  The  elder  Pitt's  famous  assertion,  in  his 
speech  on  the  American  Revolution,  —  "Three  millions 
of  people,  so  dead  to  all  the  feelings  of  liberty  as  volun- 
tarily to  submit  to  be  slaves,  would  have  been  fit  instru- 
ments to  make  slaves  of  the  rest,"  —  was  worth  citing, 
both  on  its  own  account  and  because  it  inspired  an 
equally  famous  paraphrase  by  Daniel  Webster;  but  it  has 
not  yet  been  included  in  the  collection.  Two  passages 
from  Webster  himself,  both  occurring  in  the  Speech  on 
the  Presidential  Protest,  —  the  one  which  declares  of  the 
American  colonists  that  "they  went  to  war  against  a 
preamble,  they  fought  seven  years  against  a  declaration," 
and  the  other  which  reminds  the  Senate  that  "we  have 
been  taught  to  regard  a  representative  of  the  people  as  a 


434    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

sentinel  on  the  watch-tower  of  liberty,"  —  are  possibly- 
less  familiar,  but  would  certainly  be  more  readily  recog- 
nized than  some  others  which  Bartlett  and  the  revised 
edition  have  accepted.  Both  editions  have  three  quota- 
tions from  Washington,  all  of  them  most  familiar;  but 
each  has  overlooked  the  famous  passage  from  the  speech 
to  the  Constitutional  Convention  of  1787:  "Let  us  raise 
a  standard  to  which  the  wise  and  honest  can  repair;  the 
rest  is  in  the  hands  of  God." 

Moliere  is  freely  translated  and  cited  by  Bartlett;  yet 
the  often-quoted  remark  of  the  Bourgeois  Gentilhomme, 
"By  my  faith,  I  have  been  talking  prose  for  more  than 
forty  years,  without  ever  knowing  it,"  does  not  appear 
in  either  edition.  Bartlett  made  a  number  of  interesting 
discoveries  of  present-day  Familiar  Quotations  in  Vol- 
taire, and  the  revised  edition  does  not  add  to  them;  but 
they  do  not  include  the  French  philosopher's  citation 
from  Louis  XIV,  in  the  "Siecle  de  Louis  Quatorze," 
"Every  time  I  fill  a  vacant  office  I  make  ten  malcon- 
tents and  one  ingrate,"  a  saying  which  is  constantly 
repeated  by  writers  who  never  suspect  its  origin  — 
if  indeed  its  real  origin  did  not  antedate  Louis  and 
Voltaire.  Nor  does  he  recall  the  same  author's  often 
quoted  description,  in  his  "Essai  sur  les  Mceurs,"  of  the 
Holy  Roman  Empire  of  the  Hapsburgs  as  "neither  holy, 
nor  Roman,  nor  Empire."  Neither  edition  has  anything 
from  Turgot,  whose  epigram  on  Franklin  —  "Eripuit 
ccelo  fulmen,  sceptrumque  tyrannis"  —  is  nevertheless 
a  quotation  very  familiar  to  the  reading  public. 

Bartlett's  success  in  collecting  pithy  sayings  of  emi- 
nent men,  made  on  incidental  occasions,  which  have  yet 
stuck  in  the  world's  memory,  is  remarkable.  The  list 
could,  however,  have  been  enlarged.  It  does  not  include, 
for  instance,  nor  does  the  present  revision  of  his  book, 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  435 

three  such  extremely  familiar  citations  as  Bismarck's 
declaration  to  the  Prussian  House  of  Delegates,  on  Sep- 
tember 30,  1862,  that  "the  great  questions  of  the  day 
are  not  decided  by  speeches  and  majority  votes,  but  by 
blood  and  iron";  or  Napoleon  Ill's  remark  on  the  Prince 
Imperial's  "baptism  of  fire,"  in  his  letter  to  Empress 
Eugenie  after  Saarbriicken;  or  General  Bragg's  "We  love 
him  for  the  enemies  he  has  made,"  in  his  nominating 
speech  for  Cleveland  at  the  Convention  of  1884.  The 
first  of  these  three  very  well-known  quotations  does  not, 
so  far  as  I  am  aware,  appear  in  any  collection  of  familiar 
sayings,  except  those  of  exclusively  German  origin.  It 
is  a  singular  sidelight  on  the  lapses  of  collectors  that 
Mr.  Benham's  copious  London  "Book  of  Quotations" 
gives  "Blood  and  iron"  in  its  index;  the  reference  being, 
however,  not  to  Bismarck's  historic  speech,  but  to  a 
couple  of  lines  of  Swinburne,  obviously  suggested  by  it: 

"  Not  with  dreams,  but  with  blood  and  iron, 
Shall  a  nation  be  moulded  at  last." 

It  would  not  be  altogether  fair  to  criticize  Bartlett  for 
shortcomings  in  familiar  quotations  from  the  ancient 
classics;  because  the  selections  actually  made  show  the 
greatest  industry  and  judgment,  and  because  he  himself 
probably  realized  that  those  citations,  being  largely  an 
afterthought,  were  incomplete  in  his  own  last  edition. 
Mr.  Dole  adds  nothing  to  this  branch  of  Familiar 
Quotations. 

Nevertheless,  it  should  not  require  a  classical  scholar 
to  discover  such  an  omission  in  Bartlett's  own  list  as 
Horace's  "  Daughter  more  beautiful  than  her  beautiful 
mother."  Bartlett's  general  practice  of  not  quoting  for- 
eign authors  in  the  original  may  have  ruled  out,  in  the 
old  and  the  new  editions,  such  passages  as  Horace's  "In- 


436    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

teger  vitse";  "Eheu  fugaces  Postume,  Postume,  labuntur 
anni";  "Persicos  odi,  puer,  apparatus";  "Dulce  et  de- 
corum est  pro  patria  mori";  "Pallida  mors  aequo  pulsat 
pede,"  and  "Non  omnis  moriar."  Still,  Bartlett  him- 
self includes,  in  their  English  rendering,  the  "Parturiunt 
montes,"  from  the  "Ars  Poetica,"  and  "In  pace,  ut 
sapiens,  aptarit  idonea  bello,"  from  the  "Satires,"  and 
no  cultivated  reader  would  fail  to  recognize  as  old  friends 
the  omitted  passages  to  which  I  have  referred.  The 
"Familiar  Quotations"  gives  three  passages  from  Juve- 
nal; but  none  of  them  matches  in  popular  familiarity  the 
"Scribendi  cacoethes,"  "Mens  sana  in  corpore  sano," 
"Maxima  debetur  puero  reverentia,"  "Voluptates  com- 
mendat  rarior  usus,"  and  "Quis  custodiet  ipsos  custo- 
des?"  —  all  of  which  were  susceptible  of  translation  into 
English,  and  none  of  which  is  included.  The  exceedingly 
familiar  "Omne  ignotum  pro  magnifico,"  from  the 
"Agricola"  of  Tacitus,  is  similarly  missing,  though 
Tacitus  has  a  page  to  himself,  even  in  the  older  edition. 

When  all  such  occasional  omissions  have  been  sum- 
marized, the  completeness,  good  taste,  and  paramount 
value  of  Bartlett's  work  will  none  the  less  be  recognized. 
The  editor  or  publisher  who  sees  to  it  that  the  collection 
is  judiciously  amplified  on  the  author's  own  lines,  per- 
forms a  public  service.  Perhaps  nobody  could  make  the 
collection  actually  complete.  The  foregoing  list  of  omis- 
sions by  Bartlett  and  his  later  editor,  of  really  Familiar 
Quotations,  is  submitted  not  at  all  in  a  spirit  of  depre- 
ciation, but  in  the  wish  that  it  may  contribute  toward 
a  still  more  perfect  edition  at  some  future  date  —  a  task 
in  which  all  well-read  men  should  be  able  to  help. 

In  no  respect  is  there  larger  opportunity  for  this 
service  than  in  amplifying  one  part  of  Bartlett's  work 
in  which  he  surpassed  all  other  collectors,  and  yet  in 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  437 

which  there  is  almost  indefinite  chance  for  greater  com- 
pleteness. This  is  what  may  be  called  fixing  the  gene- 
alogy of  famous  sayings,  metaphors,  or  literary  passages. 
For  instance,  at  the  time  when  Bartlett  was  compiling 
his  "Familiar  Quotations,"  a  newspaper  controversy  had 
arisen  as  to  whether  the  remark,  in  a  speech  of  1885,  that 
"Public  office  is  a  public  trust,"  was  original  with  Mr. 
Cleveland  or  not.  It  was  soon  proved  not  to  have  been 
original.  The  newspapers  traced  it  back  to  identical 
utterances  of  Mr.  Abram  S.  Hewitt  in  1883,  and  Mr. 
Dorman  B.  Eaton  in  1881,  and  most  of  them  stopped 
there.  Bartlett,  in  his  last  edition,  carried  it  along  to 
Charles  Sumner's  remark,  in  1872,  that  "the  phrase, 
'public  office  is  a  public  trust,'  has  of  late  become  public 
property,"  and  to  a  speech  of  Calhoun  in  1835,  wherein 
it  is  declared  that  "the  very  essence  of  a  free  government 
consists  in  considering  offices  as  public  trusts."  He  also 
unearths  still  older  passages  embodying  the  same  general 
thought;  but  misses  two  much  closer  parallels  —  "The 
English  doctrine  that  all  power  is  a  trust  for  the  public 
good,"  from  Macaulay's  essay  on  Horace  Walpole  (1833), 
and  "All  political  power  is  a  trust,"  from  a  speech  by 
Charles  James  Fox  in  1788.  Probably  the  saying  is  much 
older  even  than  the  last-named  date. 

Now  the  writers  or  speakers  who  repeated  or  sub- 
stantially repeated  the  language  of  Fox  may  knowingly 
have  borrowed  the  phrase,  or  they  may  have  done  so 
unconsciously.  In  either  case,  such  repetitions  are  far 
removed  from  plagiarism.  Nobody  charges  that  offence 
against  Lincoln's  "government  of  the  people,  by  the 
people,  for  the  people,"  in  his  Gettysburg  Address  of 
1863,  because  Theodore  Parker,  in  his  speech  at  the 
Boston  Anti-Slavery  Convention  of  1850,  had  defined 
a  democracy  as  "government  of  all  the  people,  by  all 


438    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

the  people,  for  all  the  people,"  or  because  Webster,  in 
a  celebrated  speech  of  1830,  had  spoken  of  government 
"made  for  the  people,  made  by  the  people,  and  answer- 
able to  the  people."  It  would  certainly  not  be  fair  to 
describe  as  plagiarism  Wendell  Phillips's  assertion,  in 
his  speech  of  February,  1861,  that  "Revolutions  never 
go  backwards,"  because  Seward  had  said  in  his  "Irre- 
pressible Conflict"  speech  of  October,  1858:  "I  know, 
and  all  the  world  knows,  that  revolutions  never  go 
backward." 

Such  parallelisms  may  occur  through  intentional, 
though  wholly  legitimate,  borrowing.  But  they  may 
also  arise  either  from  the  fact  that  a  saying  had  already 
become  part  of  the  common  stock,  or  from  a  purely 
fortuitous  recurrence  of  the  same  image  or  idea,  or, 
finally,  from  the  fact  that  the  mind  of  a  writer  or  speaker 
was  so  impregnated  with  his  reading  of  certain  other 
authors  as  to  reproduce  unconsciously  the  thought  or 
words  of  an  older  period.  A  striking  instance  of  the 
last-named  process,  not  set  forth  by  Bartlett,  occurs  in 
the  famous  peroration  of  the  "Reply  to  Hayne."  Might 
his  last  glance,  said  Webster,  behold  "the  gorgeous  en- 
sign of  the  Republic,  still  full  high  advanced,  its  arms 
and  trophies  streaming  in  all  their  original  lustre."  Let 
the  reader  compare  this  with  the  passage  in  "Paradise 
Lost"  which  describes  the  rebel  angel  unfurling 

Th'  Imperial  ensign,  which,  full  high  advanced, 
Shone  like  a  meteor,  streaming  to  the  wind, 
With  gems  and  golden  lustre  rich  emblazed. 
Seraphic  arms  and  trophies." 

This  is  almost  certainly  an  unconscious,  though  so 
very  close,  reproduction  of  Milton's  imagery  and  words 
by  Webster.  And  Webster  was  not  the  only  borrower  — 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  439 

witness  Gray's  "Streamed  like  a  meteor  to  the  troubled 
air,"  from  "The  Bard,"  and  Campbell's  "Meteor  flag 
of  England,"  from  "Ye  Mariners."  Only  the  citation 
from  Gray  is  given  in  the  "Familiar  Quotations"  as  a 
parallel  passage.  "  Corporations  have  no  souls  "  is  rightly 
ascribed  by  Bartlett  to  Lord  Coke's  remark,  in  a  legal 
opinion  of  the  early  seventeenth  century,  that  corpora- 
tions "cannot  commit  treason,  nor  be  outlawed  nor 
excommunicate,  for  they  have  no  souls."  But  he  and 
the  editor  of  the  revised  edition  have  missed  the  in- 
teresting parallel  statement  from  the  bench  by  Lord 
Thurlow,  two  centuries  later:  "Did  you  ever  expect 
a  corporation  to  have  a  conscience,  when  it  has  no 
soul  to  be  damned  and  no  body  to  be  kicked?"  Recent 
American  jurisprudence  might  throw  a  shadow  of  doubt 
on  the  concluding  words  of  the  second  of  these  obiter 
dicta. 

These  are  but  incidental  and  haphazard  illustrations 
of  the  rich  field  which  remains  as  yet  hardly  tilled  in 
the  study  of  Familiar  Quotations.  The  kind  of  literary 
harvest  which  should  still  be  reasonably  looked  for  may 
be  judged  from  the  extremely  interesting  character  of 
some  of  the  literary  pedigrees  established  by  Bartlett 's 
own  investigations.  Macaulay's  traveller  from  New 
Zealand,  who  at  some  remote  future  date  may,  "in  the 
midst  of  a  vast  solitude,  take  his  stand  on  a  broken 
arch  of  London  bridge  to  sketch  the  ruins  of  St.  Paul's," 
strikes  the  reader  as  a  Macaulayism  pure  and  simple. 
Macaulay  wrote  the  passage  in  1840;  Bartlett  produces 
a  published  letter  of  Horace  Walpole,  dated  1774,  de- 
scribing how  "at  last  some  curious  traveller  from  Lima 
will  visit  England  and  give  a  description  of  the  ruins 
of  St.  Paul." 

Probably  few  people  would  hesitate  to  ascribe  to  Na- 


440    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

poleon  Bonaparte  the  familiar  saying  that  "Providence 
is  on  the  side  of  the  heaviest  battalions."  But  Bartlett 
shows,  first,  that  Napoleon's  actual  statement  was  that 
"Providence  is  always  on  the  side  of  the  last  reserve"; 
next,  that  Voltaire,  in  a  letter  dated  1770,  had  remarked, 
"It  is  said  that  God  is  always  on  the  side  of  the  big 
battalions ";  and  finally  reproduces  from  Gibson  the 
interesting  parallel,  in  1776,  that  "winds  and  waves  are 
always  on  the  side  of  the  ablest  navigators."  Benham's 
dictionary  of  quotations  adds  the  considerably  older 
parallelism  of  the  remark  of  the  Comte  Bussy-Rabutin, 
in  1677,  "Dieu  est  d 'ordinaire  pour  les  gros  escadrons 
contre  les  petits."  The  often-quoted  saying  that  we  hate 
most  those  whom  we  have  injured  (frequently  repeated 
since  the  German  invasion  of  Belgium)  would  be  attribu- 
ted correctly  by  most  well-read  men  to  the  "Proprium 
humani  ingenii  odisse  quern  lseseris"  of  Tacitus.  But 
Bartlett  carries  it  back  to  the  much  earlier  "Quos 
lseserunt,  et  oderunt"  of  Seneca,  and  parallels  it  with 
Dryden's 

"  Forgiveness  to  the  injured  does  belong, 
But  they  ne'er  pardon  who  have  done  the  wrong; " 

and  with  the  Italian  popular  proverb,  "Chi  fa  ingiuria 
non  perdona  mai."  His  attention  was  not  called  to 
Lowell's  matching  of  Shakespeare's  "sea  of  troubles,"  in 
"Hamlet,"  with  the  /catcwv  7re\ayo?  in  the  "Hippolytus" 
of  Euripides.  But  that  was  literary  coincidence  rather 
than  a  literary  pedigree. 

Whether  a  complete  investigation  of  these  literary 
parallelisms  and  genealogies  would  or  would  not  outgrow 
the  scope  of  a  single  volume  —  even  the  new  Tenth 
Edition  comprises  1458  pages,  as  against  1158  in  Bart- 
lett's  Ninth  —  may  be  debatable;  but  the  prospect  of 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  441 

enlarged  and  interesting  discoveries  is  unquestionable. 
Readers  who  have  grown  used  to  "Bartlett"  as  a  library 
companion  will  hope  that  some  further  future  revision 
of  his  incomparable  collection  will  not  fail  to  enrich  that 
side  of  it. 


THE  CALIFORNIA  EXPOSITIONS 

By  William  MacDonald 

(October  21,  1915) 

There  is  probably  no  city  in  America  which  would 
have  been  so  likely  to  diffuse,  through  every  part  of  a 
great  international  exposition,  its  own  peculiar  spirit, 
atmosphere,  and  color  as  the  city  of  San  Francisco. 
From  the  rough,  buoyant  days  of  the  first  gold-seekers, 
through  all  the  years  in  which  other  wealth  than  gold  has 
steadily  come  to  the  ascendant,  San  Francisco  has  re- 
mained, as  it  began,  a  place  of  distinction.  Its  great  bay, 
one  of  the  most  superb  in  all  the  world;  its  steep  hills 
opening  to  view  the  mountains  and  the  sea;  the  semi- 
tropical  vegetation  of  its  gardens  and  parks;  its  parti- 
colored population  drawn  from  the  four  quarters  of 
the  globe;  its  eager,  venturesome  business  life,  with  the 
spending  of  money,  quickly  made;  the  long-time  cor- 
ruption of  its  politics,  punctuated  by  the  fervid  oratory 
of  the  sand-lots  or  by  short-lived  spasms  of  reform;  the 
mellowing  tradition  of  its  Spanish  past,  set  with  mis- 
sions and  priests  and  a  Roman  faith;  the  penetrating 
chill  of  its  summer  fogs  and  winds;  the  gorgeous  sunsets 
of  its  Golden  Gate:  all  these  and  more,  recounted  by 
writers,  artists,  travellers,  or  men  of  affairs,  have  com- 
bined to  surround  San  Francisco  with  the  halo  of  a 
city  apart,  a  unique  community  of  indefinable  attrac- 
tiveness, a  place  where  life,  and  the  people  who  lived  it, 
were  different. 

Such  externals,  however,  were,  after  all,  only  the  set- 
ting. What  gave  San  Francisco  its  charm,  alike  for  the 
resident  as  for  the  casual  visitor,  was  its  pervading  at- 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  443 

mosphere  of  freedom.  Accessible  to  the  rest  of  the  Union, 
for  twenty  years  after  the  first  influx  of  English-speaking 
population,  only  by  mail-coach  or  pony  express  across 
the  plains,  or  a  tedious  voyage  of  weeks  by  way  of  the 
Isthmus  or  Cape  Horn,  and  still  remote  in  important 
domains  of  thought  and  interest  from  some  of  the  cur- 
rents of  American  life,  the  men  and  women  of  the  form- 
ative period  were  thrown  back  upon  themselves.  Largely 
free  from  conventional  restraints,  and  with  no  dominat- 
ing social  caste  to  bring  them  to  book,  they  ordered  their 
lives  as  they  pleased.  Personal  and  corporate  conduct, 
if  it  so  be  that  open  lawlessness  and  public  scandal  were 
avoided,  was  largely  unrestrained.  No  one  asked  the 
newcomer  who  he  was  or  what  he  had  been :  it  sufficed  to 
know  the  name  by  which  he  wished  to  be  called  and  the 
kind  of  work  he  could  do.  It  was  a  society  in  which 
liberty  was  often  license,  in  which  money  counted  for 
more  than  virtue,  and  in  which  the  cup  of  pleasure  was 
drunk  and  drained.  What  has  only  slowly  been  per- 
ceived, however,  what  for  the  older  American  East  has 
as  yet  hardly  been  perceived  at  all,  is  that  underneath 
this  energetic  pursuit  of  wealth,  lavish  expenditure,  and 
moral  relaxation  lay  a  profound  and  strenuous  concern 
for  art,  for  music,  for  literature;  for  everything,  in  fact, 
which  embodied  intellectual  interest  or  the  spirit  of 
beauty.  Around  the  Bay  of  San  Francisco  has  steadily 
grown  up  a  distinctive  and  worthy  literature.  The  annual 
plays  of  the  Bohemian  Club,  quite  apart  from  their 
romantic  staging,  embody  some  of  the  best  dramatic 
and  musical  work  done  in  the  United  States.  Here,  too, 
has  developed  a  group  of  painters,  sculptors,  architects, 
illustrators,  and  designers  whose  work  need  not  fear 
comparison  with  good  work  in  similar  fields  anywhere. 
One  knows  but  little  of  San  Francisco  who  does  not 


444    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM^ 

know  its  higher  life,  or  who  sees  only  its  business 
"hustle,"  its  open-handed  spending,  or  its  brilliant  cafes. 
Naturally,  this  higher  life  of  the  intellect  and  the  im- 
agination, like  the  society  in  which  it  is  set,  has  been 
throughout  somewhat  a  life  of  unconventionally  and 
even  of  revolt.  Doubtless  beauty,  in  whatever  form  it  is 
expressed,  has  its  sure  foundations  and  its  immutable 
laws,  but  its  forms  have  found  acceptance,  in  the  Pacific 
metropolis,  rather  because  they  were  themselves  beauti- 
ful than  because  they  were  sanctioned  by  time  or  tradi- 
tion. The  love  of  classical  simplicity  and  nobleness 
which  builds  a  Greek  theatre  at  Berkeley  is  as  sincere 
as  is  the  passion  for  romance  which  develops  the  wonder- 
ful stage-setting  of  the  Bohemian  Club  plays;  but  the 
Berkeley  theatre  is  loved  because  it  is  an  embodiment 
of  beauty,  not  because  it  is  Greek.  And  so  with  every 
other  manifestation  of  beauty  or  of  thought.  The  men 
and  women  who  best  typify  the  spirit  of  San  Francisco 
have  consciously  sought,  not  simply  orientation  in  world 
culture,  but  an  adequate  self-expression.  Where  histori- 
cal forms  have  met  the  need,  they  have  used  historical 
forms;  where  such  forms  have  failed  to  satisfy,  they  have 
freely  worked  out  novel,  or  at  least  unusual,  forms  for 
themselves.  For  them,  at  least,  the  sea  was  not  always 
purple;  nor  were  the  groves  of  olive,  nor  the  rocks  of 
marble,  nor  life  itself  an  alternation  of  tragedy  and  com- 
edy. To  the  keen  light  and  prodigal  wealth  of  color 
spread  before  them  in  the  external  world,  life  added  the 
allurement  and  picturesqueness  of  romance;  while  to 
color  and  romance  was  further  added  the  resource  of  a 
free  life  out-of-doors.  That  the  pursuit  of  self-expression 
has  often  been  highly  self-conscious,  that  the  lines  of 
effort  have  not  always  been  successfully  concealed,  and 
that  the  result  has  sometimes  been  bizarre,  San  Fran- 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  445 

cisco  itself  would  be  the  first  to  admit;  for  nowhere  in 
America  have  artists  so  deliberately  lived  heatedly  in 
order  that  they  might  speak  vividly;  but  the  ultimate 
aim,  at  least,  has  been  always  clear. 

I  have  made  these  preliminary  observations  because, 
unless  the  local  characteristics  which  they  briefly  sum- 
marize are  kept  in  mind,  both  the  aim  and  the  achieve- 
ment of  the  Panama-Pacific  International  Exposition, 
are  almost  certain  to  be  misjudged.  Of  international 
expositions  we  have  had  a  sufficiency,  if  not  a  surfeit;  and 
there  was  unquestionably  a  widespread  doubt  whether 
another  great  show,  especially  in  time  of  war.  would  or 
could  be  worth  while.  While,  however,  each  previous 
exposition  has  had  its  distinctive  features,  all  have  pos- 
sessed suggestive  points  in  common.  The  occasion, 
broadly  crossed  by  the  demands  and  ambitions  of  local 
or  national  display,  has  been  some  anniversary  which, 
though  appealing  to  patriotism  or  to  the  historical  sense, 
has  stirred  national  pride  rather  than  the  imagination. 
The  architecture  of  the  vast  and  numerous  buildings, 
when  not  an  attempt  to  reproduce,  in  unfamiliar  sur- 
roundings, the  principles  or  forms  of  some  familiar  type, 
has  represented  a  conscious  effort  to  produce  a  novel 
structure,  more  or  less  elaborately  decorated,  assumed  to 
be  typical  of  a  great  international  bazaar;  while  the 
exhibits,  widely  chosen  and  elaborately  displayed,  have 
aimed,  as  a  rule,  to  give  a  comprehensive  view  of  the 
progress  of  civilization,  particularly  in  industrial  direc- 
tions. 

At  all  of  these  points  the  San  Francisco  Exposition, 
taken  as  a  whole,  is  different  from  its  predecessors.  Those 
who  planned  and  executed  it  have  had  two  aims  —  one 
practical  and  historical,  the  other  symbolical.  On  its 
historical  and  practical  side  the  Exposition  commemorates 


446    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

and  celebrates  the  opening  of  the  Panama  Canal.  No 
event  in  American  history  has  appealed  so  powerfully 
to  the  imagination  of  the  Pacific  Coast  as  the  construc- 
tion of  this  great  waterway.  Beyond  its  significance  as 
a  great  scientific  achievement  or  a  commercial  aid,  the 
Canal  stands  as  a  triumph  of  man  over  nature,  a  new 
linking  of  the  East  and  the  West,  a  new  step  towards 
national  unity,  a  new  act  of  national  expansion.  Like  the 
watershed  that  divides  the  streams  in  their  courses,  it 
marks  off  the  old  time  from  the  new.  And  out  of  this 
appeal  to  the  imagination  sprang  the  symbolism.  Here 
was  to  be  displayed,  not  examples  of  all  that  the  world 
had  ever  done,  but  the  choicest  of  what  it  had  accom- 
plished during  the  decade  in  which  the  Canal  was  build- 
ing, and  the  opening  of  the  new  time  could  be  foreseen. 
Here  were  to  be  symbolized,  in  one  vast  but  unified  group 
of  buildings,  avenues,  and  gardens,  the  past,  present, 
and  future  of  San  Francisco,  of  California,  and  of  the 
New  World.  In  and  about  a  Tower  of  Jewels,  a  Court 
of  Abundance,  a  Court  of  the  Four  Seasons,  a  Court  of 
the  Universe,  or  an  Avenue  of  Nations  were  to  be  grouped 
memorials  of  all  that  had  made  the  Pacific  littoral  what 
it  was,  and  all  that,  in  the  new  era  here  commemorated, 
should  make  it  what  it  might  be.  Here,  at  gateways  or 
fountains,  on  walls,  cornices,  friezes,  tympani,  or  pinna- 
cles, was  to  be  read  the  story  of  the  West:  the  Indian, 
the  buccaneer,  the  friar,  the  gold-seeker,  the  farmer,  the 
mechanic;  the  discoverer,  the  soldier,  and  the  pioneer; 
the  canoe,  the  prairie-schooner,  and  the  locomotive;  the 
wealth  of  forests,  fields,  and  mines  beckoning  the  workers 
of  the  East  and  South,  of  Asia  and  the  islands  of  the  sea. 
What  of  history  was  portrayed  was  to  be  accurate,  of 
course,  but  it  was  to  be  history  spiritualized,  the  every- 
day  and  commonplace  made  ideal.     With  their  feet 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  447 

planted  on  the  past,  the  designers  of  the  Exposition 
nevertheless  looked  towards  the  future.  The  western 
confines  of  the  New  World  were  their  standpoint,  but 
their  outlook  was  towards  a  newer  world  beyond  the  set- 
ting sun. 

It  is  significant  that  the  architecture  which  sought  to 
embody  this  symbolical  conception  should  have  found 
its  inspiration  so  largely  in  the  Orient  and  the  Moorish 
age  of  Spain.  To  California,  simplicity  in  art  would  ap- 
pear to  make  as  scanty  an  appeal  as  does  Stoicism  in 
conduct  or  Puritanism  in  religion.  What  was  sought, 
apparently,  next  to  spaciousness  and  even  vastness  — 
an  indispensable  condition,  perhaps,  of  any  exposition 
architecture  —  was  color  and  gorgeousness,  a  sensuous 
beauty  at  once  mystical  and  commanding.  If  buildings 
and  their  setting  could  ever  be  made  to  produce  an  im- 
pression of  limitless  and  voluptuous  wealth,  or  frame  the 
matter-of-fact  achievements  of  man  in  rich  and  scin- 
tillating color,  the  Panama-Pacific  Exposition  attained 
that  end.  It  was  not  barbaric,  for  it  was  distinctly  har- 
monious, symmetrical,  and  carefully  wrought;  yet  it  was 
not  pagan,  for  it  was  neither  severe  nor  impersonal;  and 
it  was  not  Christian,  for  it  spoke  no  self-denial.  Pleasure, 
ease,  imagination,  self-expression,  and,  most  of  all,  un- 
conventional freedom  and  unbounded  ambition,  were  its 
keynotes. 

Whether  such  an  ideal  is  in  itself  worthy,  or  whether, 
if  it  is,  its  working-out  in  the  present  instance  is  on  the 
whole  successful,  are  questions  on  which  volumes  might 
be  written.  Critics  for  whom  the  art  of  the  classical 
world  or  of  Christian  Europe  is  the  last  word,  or  with 
whom  historical  evolution  must  needs  proceed  by  slow 
and  guarded  steps,  could  not  but  be  startled  by  the  bold 
mixing  of  architectural  types,  the  frank  departure  from 


448    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

hallowed  precepts,  and  the  prodigal  overlay  of  decorative 
device.  The  symbolism  of  some  of  the  frescoes,  figures, 
and  figure-groups,  seems  at  times  far-fetched,  and  the 
brilliant  Tower  of  Jewels  is  obviously  too  low.  Studied 
attentively  by  aid  of  the  printed  descriptions,  both  the 
structures  and  their  details  may  clearly  be  seen  to  em- 
body the  ideals  which  they  are  said  to  embody;  but  it  is 
also  clear  that  they  might  as  easily,  in  some  instances, 
typify  something  else,  or  even  nothing  very  definite  at  all. 
Something,  too,  would  depend  upon  the  physical  point 
of  view,  for  the  high  ridge  of  houses  which  forms  the 
background  of  the  Exposition  on  the  south  is  not  beauti- 
ful, and  upon  that  part  of  the  surroundings  one  does  well 
to  turn  one's  back. 

In  some  other  respects  the  success  attained  is  cer- 
tainly noteworthy.  At  no  previous  American  exposition 
has  the  entire  group  of  buildings  given  so  marked  an  im- 
pression of  artistic  unity.  Not  only  were  the  exhibition 
buildings  proper  built,  as  has  been  said,  with  a  central 
aim,  but  the  national,  State,  and  administrative  struc- 
tures were  kept  strictly  in  harmony  with  the  general 
scheme.  Whether  in  style,  color,  or  position,  no  building 
has  been  allowed  to  obtrude.  Everywhere,  too,  both 
within  and  without,  there  was  a  commendable  absence 
of  garish  signs  or  advertisements.  The  unified  color 
scheme,  studiously  worked  out  to  accord  with  the  charac- 
teristic lights,  shadows,  and  atmospheric  effects  of  the 
locality,  was  harmonious  and  impressive;  while  the  elec- 
trical illumination  at  night  turned  grounds  and  buildings 
into  a  wonderland  of  beauty  and  gorgeousness.  Nor 
should  the  remarkable  floral  scheme,  with  its  succession 
of  flowers  from  season  to  season,  and  it  skilful  use  of 
masses  of  green  to  break  the  great  wall  spaces,  fail  of 
appreciative  recognition. 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  449 

In  estimating  the  range  and  significance  of  the  exhibits, 
one  again  must  keep  in  mind  the  theory  on  which  their 
acceptance  was  determined.  With  a  few  exceptions,  and 
those  mainly  in  the  foreign  art  exhibits,  nothing,  as  has 
been  said,  was  intended  to  be  shown  which  had  not  been 
discovered  or  invented,  or  the  process  or  application  of 
which  had  not  been  substantially  developed,  within  the 
last  decade.  Like  the  architectural  and  artistic  scheme 
of  buildings  and  grounds,  the  things  shown  were  to  be 
the  latest  words,  the  newest  thought,  the  edge  of  day  for 
the  new  world.  Those,  accordingly,  who  looked  for  com- 
prehensive displays  of  progress  in  industry,  science,  or 
art  from  early  times  were  disappointed;  the  test  of  ac- 
ceptance was  to-day,  what  is  being  done  now.  The  barest 
attempt  at  enumeration,  however,  even  under  these  limi- 
tations, would  be  only  a  catalogue  of  ships.  Speaking 
broadly,  the  predominant  characteristic  of  the  American 
exhibits  was  utility.  The  widely  ramified  uses  of  elec- 
tricity, particularly  for  travel  and  communication  and  in 
domestic  processes;  the  elaborate  but  economical  proc- 
esses of  manufacture  and  mining;  the  endless  variety  of 
tools  and  instruments  of  precision;  the  control  and  trans- 
mission of  steam  and  electrical  power;  the  array  of  de- 
vices for  facilitating  business  or  insuring  personal  safety, 
were  among  the  things  which  bulked  largest  in  the  exhi- 
bition halls.  Not  everything  was  insistently  utilitarian, 
however.  One  of  the  striking  impressions  made  by  the 
industrial  exhibits  was  the  extent  to  which  objects  of 
utility,  notably  textiles  and  articles  of  domestic  use, 
were  receiving  artistic  forms  even  where  the  cost  was 
small.  Some  of  the  exhibits  of  pottery  and  gold  and  silver 
work  were  very  rich,  and  there  was  a  small  but  choice 
display  of  book-bindings  and  an  alluring  book-shop. 

The  Federal  Government,  though  contributing  largely 


450    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

to  the  collections,  had  no  building  of  its  own,  but  scat- 
tered its  numerous  departmental  exhibits  throughout 
the  Exposition  halls  and  grounds.  Never  has  the  scientific 
and  educational  work  of  the  Government,  and  its  wide- 
spread activities  in  agriculture,  irrigation,  public  health 
and  safety,  and  the  protection  and  encouragement  of 
industry  and  commerce,  been  so  amply  and  instructively 
displayed.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  extensive  use  was  made  of 
pictures,  charts,  and  models,  the  finest  example  of  the 
last  being  a  model  of  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  and  the 
Canal.  The  anthropological  exhibit  was  beyond  praise. 
The  educational  exhibits  proper,  generously  represen- 
tative of  State  and  city  school  systems,  were  an  inform- 
ing illustration  of  the  diversified  range  and  practical  spirit 
of  the  modern  school  curriculum.  Several  religious  sects 
prepared  exhibits  showing  their  material  activities  in 
missionary  and  educational  lines,  from  tracts  and  pic- 
tures to  railway  chapel  coaches;  the  enormous  growth  of 
organized  philanthropy  and  schemes  of  social  betterment 
was  set  forth  in  pictures,  diagrams,  and  models;  while  for 
those  whose  spiritual  longings,  attuned  to  the  dominant 
note  of  the  whole  Exposition,  demanded  ampler  fields, 
there  were  literary  offerings  in  Christian  Science,  the- 
osophy,  and  "new  thought"  of  several  strains. 

The  war,  as  was  to  be  expected,  narrowed  the  range 
of  foreign  exhibits;  nevertheless  twenty-two  foreign  Gov- 
ernments were  represented  by  buildings,  Great  Britain 
and  Germany  being  the  two  most  prominent  exceptions, 
while  thirty-one  Governments  altogether  were  repre- 
sented either  by  buildings  or  by  exhibits  in  the  great  de- 
partmental halls,  or  by  both.  As  a  whole,  the  foreign 
displays  made  up  in  quality  what  they  lacked  in  quantity. 
Selection  here,  like  comparison,  can  hardly  be  made  with- 
out injustice,  yet  the  most  casual  visitor  could  not  fail  to 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  451 

be  struck  by  the  exquisite  beauty  of  the  collection  of 
fabrics,  metal  work,  tapestries,  and  paintings  sent  by 
the  Government  of  France,  and  housed  in  a  building 
which  reproduced  the  Palais  de  la  Legion  d'Honneur; 
the  brilliant  richness  and  variety  of  the  Chinese  and 
Japanese  exhibits  (the  former,  indeed,  rather  outshining 
the  latter),  both  grouped  in  one  of  the  main  buildings; 
the  solid  industrial  and  commercial  quality  of  the  Nether- 
landish and  Swedish  offerings;  or  the  economic  and  edu- 
cational development  shown  in  Argentina  and  Brazil. 
Germany,  participating  unofficially,  caught  the  spirit 
of  the  Exposition  with  characteristic  exactitude  and 
thoroughness,  sending  a  small  but  choice  exhibit  of  its 
latest  products  in  chemicals,  dyestuffs,  and  photographic 
devices,  and  a  specimen  of  mesothorium,  one  of  the  new- 
est derivatives  of  radium,  valued  at  $300,000.  As  a  skil- 
ful advertisement  of  a  country's  resources,  however,  the 
admirably  housed  Canadian  exhibit  must  receive  the 
first  place,  as  the  crowds  which  thronged  it  eloquently 
testified.  The  State  and  Territorial  buildings,  twenty- 
eight  in  number,  with  Massachusetts  holding  the  place 
of  honor  at  the  head  of  the  Avenue  of  Nations,  were  for 
the  most  part  used  only  as  social  centres;  but  California 
in  addition  assembled  a  display  of  fruits  and  flowers 
which  was  a  veritable  orgy  of  richness  and  color. 

In  the  great  wealth  of  musical  offerings  which  the 
managers  of  the  Exposition  provided,  the  most  signifi- 
cant was  the  visit  of  the  Boston  Symphony  Orchestra. 
San  Francisco  has  never  lacked  good  musicians,  nor 
orchestral  and  ensemble  organizations;  and  it  has  also 
done  something  to  develop  the  resources  of  the  orchestra 
for  performances  out  of  doors.  But  its  instrumental  per- 
formers, however  great  their  ability,  must  seek  a  living 
mainly  in  the  cafes,  where  music  of  a  popular  or  highly 


452    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

modern  sort  naturally  holds  the  chief  place.  In  the  con- 
certs of  the  Boston  Symphony  Orchestra  the  music-lov- 
ers of  California  had,  for  the  first  time  on  their  own  soil, 
an  opportunity  to  hear  the  works  of  Beethoven,  Bach, 
Mozart,  and  Haydn  played  as  they  should  be  played, 
and  by  artists  whose  interpretations  could  not  but  be 
accepted  as  authoritative.  The  generous  recognition 
of  what  was,  to  most  who  heard  it,  a  revelation  of  the 
beauties  of  classical  music  and  of  the  possibilities  of 
chaste  and  dignified  rendering,  augurs  much  for  the  fu- 
ture of  musical  art  on  the  Pacific  Coast. 

Very  many  of  the  travellers  who  journeyed  to  San 
Francisco  went  on  also  to  the  Panama-California  Exposi- 
tion at  San  Diego;  and  the  briefest  survey  of  this  year 
of  Western  splendor  would  be  incomplete  if  it  failed  to 
pay  honor  to  the  beauty  and  enterprise  which  the  latter 
exposition  displayed.  Like  the  Grand  Canon  of  Arizona 
and  the  Grand  Canon  of  the  Yellowstone,  something  of 
the  comparative  impression  depended  upon  which  was 
seen  first.  Yet  it  may  well  be  doubted  if  any  one  who, 
whether  in  memory  or  in  mere  chronological  sequence, 
exchanged  the  fogs  and  winds  of  San  Francisco  for  the 
warmth  and  brightness  of  San  Diego,  will  fail  to  recall 
the  latter  with  peculiar  satisfaction  and  delight.  Where 
the  northern  Exposition  was  vast  and  overpowering,  the 
southern  was  compassed  and  friendly.  Where  the  artists 
of  the  one  sought  and  attained  an  eager,  passionate  bril- 
liancy, those  of  the  other  strove,  with  equal  success,  for 
restfulness,  devotion,  and  quiet  charm.  The  one  voiced 
exuberance  and  revolt;  the  other,  while  no  less  joyous, 
was  delicate  and  self-contained.  Nowhere  has  the  Span- 
ish mission  architecture  been  employed  so  successfully 
on  so  large  a  scale;  while  the  landscape  gardening,  thanks 
in  part  to  the  superior  artistic  possibilities  of  the  site  — 


REPRESENTATIVE  ESSAYS  453 

a  high  mesa  overlooking  the  "Harbor  of  the  Sun"  —  was 
distinctly  richer  and  more  fascinating  than  that  at  San 
Francisco. 

One's  residual  impression  of  a  great  exposition  is  likely 
to  be  compounded  of  two  somewhat  diverse  elements: 
the  probable  effect  of  the  display  upon  those  who  parti- 
cipated in  it,  and  its  significance  as  a  kind  of  cross-section 
of  national  or  international  culture.  Both  directly  and 
incidentally,  I  think,  the  effect  in  this  instance  may  very 
possibly  turn  out  to  be  considerable.  For  one  thing,  the 
transcontinental  journey,  to  far  the  larger  porportion 
of  the  thousands  who  made  it,  was  little  less  than  a  new 
discovery  of  America.  The  traveller  to  whom  the  only 
beauty  worth  seeing  had  thus  far  been  the  Alps,  or  Nor- 
way, or  Greece,  touched  elbows  with  those  to  whom  New 
England,  or  Ohio,  or  Kentucky  had  been  almost  the  only 
known  world;  and  to  all  alike  the  plains,  the  deserts,  and 
the  mountains  revealed  their  wonders.  Thousands  made 
the  journey,  in  whole  or  in  large  part,  by  automobile,  and 
learned  to  their  surprise  that  there  were  good  roads,  good 
hotels,  cultivated  people,  and  imposing  scenery  beyond 
the  Mississippi.  The  novel  types  of  architecture,  the 
richness  of  a  semi-tropical  vegetation,  the  possibilities 
of  life  in  the  open  air,  and  the  picturesque  reminders  of  a 
Spanish  civilization  indefinitely  old,  were  full  of  sugges- 
tiveness  for  a  more  prosaic  and  formal  East,  as  were  the 
free,  gracious,  and  hearty  social  ways  of  a  cosmopolitan 
community.  The  distinctly  educational  character  of 
most  of  the  exhibits,  with  their  emphasis  upon  that 
which  was  newest  or  most  highly  perfected,  made  in  it- 
self a  strong  appeal.  It  was  worth  while  to  have  given, 
to  some  hundreds  of  thousands  of  the  American  people, 
an  enlarged  vision  of  their  own  country  and  of  the  world's 
life  and  interests;  for  without  vision  the  people  perish. 


454    FIFTY  YEARS  OF  AMERICAN  IDEALISM 

The  cultural  significance  is  less  easy  to  appraise 
with  certitude.  With  notable  exceptions  like  those  of 
France  and  China,  the  exhibits  at  San  Francisco  gave 
an  overwhelming  impression  of  practicality :  a  practical- 
ity which  was,  indeed,  enhancing  in  every  direction  the 
physical  comfort  of  life,  and  developing  on  every  hand 
the  resources  of  nature  for  the  betterment  of  man;  but 
an  overpowering  practicality,  nevertheless.  Yet  it  was  a 
practicality  set  in  marvellous  external  beauty,  and  open- 
ing everywhere  to  the  sun  and  the  air.  Whether  the 
imagination  which  seized  upon  the  occasion  as  marking 
the  dividing  line  between  an  old  America  and  a  new,  and 
strove  to  symbolize  the  concept  by  a  daring  union  of 
Oriental  and  Occidental  ideas,  will  turn  out  to  have  been 
well  grounded  in  the  facts  and  tendencies  of  our  national 
life,  only  time  can  show.  Certain  it  is,  however,  that  the 
San  Francisco  Exposition,  in  the  whole  scheme  of  its 
planning  as  well  as  in  the  details  of  its  execution,  has 
been  a  challenge  to  old  forms,  old  methods,  old  standards, 
and  old  faiths.  In  Burke's  phrase,  it  is  the  dissidence  of 
dissent.  One  would  fain  hope  that  it  may  prove,  to  those 
who  conceived  it,  as  fruitful  an  inspiration  to  more  per- 
manent achievement  as  it  is  certain  to  remain,  for  those 
who  saw  it,  a  gracious  memory. 


THE    END 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Abolitionism,  303-08. 

Adams,  C.  F.f  109,   182;  article   on, 

158-60. 
Adams,  C.    F.,  Jr.,  connection  with 

Nation,  46. 
Addison,  241,  276,  278. 
iEschylus,  326. 
Alabama  case,  55,  111,  369. 
Alaska  Purchase,  123,  124. 
"Alaska  Forty  Years  Ago,"  article  on, 

123,  124. 
Allen,  W.  F.,  contributions  to  Nation 

of,  19,  20;  biographical  details  of, 

19. 
American   conservatism,   an   English 

view  of,  309-24. 
"American  Diplomats  Abroad,"  art- 
icle on,  97-99. 
"American  Scholarship,"  article  on, 

401-13. 
"American   Sympathies   During   the 

Franco-Prussian  War,"  article  on, 

104-06. 
Anderson,  General,  339. 
Aristotle,  327,  328,  379. 
Arms-dealing,  morality  of,  265-69. 
Arnold,  Matthew,  408,  409. 
Asquith,  H.  H.,  182. 
Atkinson,  Edward,  46. 
"  Atlantic  Cable,"  the,  article  on,  94, 

95. 
Austen,  Jane,  410. 
"  Austro-Prussian  War  and  Rights  of 

Private  Property,"  the,  article  on, 

94. 

Babbit,  Irving,  52. 
Bache,  Prof.,  299. 
Bacon,  Francis,  411. 
Bagehot,  Walter,  202. 
Balfour,  A.  J.,  182. 
Bancroft,  George,  237,  238. 


Bandelier,  A.  F.,  49. 

Bartlett,  John,  427-41. 

Beaconsfield,  Lord,  310,  366,  369,  372, 
430. 

Beal,  Samuel,  48. 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  278. 

Belgium,  neutrality  of,  369. 

Benson,  Carl.  See  Bristed,  C.  A. 

Bentham,  Jeremy,  322. 

Benton,  T.  H.,  189. 

Bernstorff,  Albrecht,  Count,  265. 

Bertrand,  J.  L.  F.,  355. 

Bethmann-Hollweg,  431. 

Bismarck,  105,  322,  331-34,  434. 

Blaine,  J.  G.,  179. 

Blair  Bill,  175,  176. 

Boeckh,  August,  828. 

Boissier,  Gaston,  408,  409. 

Boswell,  431. 

Boxer  Rebellion,  196-98;  Hay's  dip- 
lomatic action  concerning,  212. 

Brace,  C.  L.,  22. 

Bradstreet,  Anne,  422. 

Bragg,  General,  435. 

Brevoort,  Henry,  240. 

Bright,  John,  366. 

Bristed,  C.  A.,  11. 

"British-Americans,"  the,  article  on, 
165-67. 

Broglie,  Due  de,  319. 

Brougham,  Lord,  322,  366,  372. 

Brownell,  W.  C,  tribute  to  Sedgwick, 
17;  member  of  editorial  staff  of  Na- 
tion, 25;  estimate  of  Godkin,  28; 
tribute  to  Garrison,  30. 

Browning,  Robert,  417,  418. 

Bryan,  W.  J.,  his  nomination  in  1896, 
187-89. 

"Bryan's  First  Candidacy,"  article 
on,  187-89. 

Bryant,  W.  C,  237,  238,  240. 

Bryce,  Lord,  article  on  Godkin  and 


458 


INDEX 


Garrison,  in  Semi-Centennial  num- 
ber of  Nation,  9;  contributor  to  Na- 
tion, 25;  his  opinion  of  Evening 
Post,  57;  letter  to  Godkin,  69;  Par- 
liamentary career  of,  182;  article  on 
Gladstone,  356-78. 

Bulgaria,  369. 

Bull  Run,  339. 

Burke,  320,  366. 

Burlingame,  Anson,  99. 

Burne-Jones,  217. 

Bussy-Rabutin,  Comte  de,  440. 

Butcher,  S.  H.,  412,  413. 

Butler,  Benjamin  F.,  reference  to,  in 
first  number  of  Nation,  12,  54. 

Butler,  Samuel,  275. 

Byron,  Lord,  239,  241,  274,  280. 

Cable,  Atlantic,  94,  95. 

Calhoun,  437. 

"California  Expositions,"  the,  article 

on,  442-54. 
California,  part  of,  in  Mexican  War, 

336. 
Calvin,  227,  283. 
Cameron,  Simon,  339. 
Campaign  funds,  ethics  of,   180-83; 

Van  Alen's  contributions  to,   181; 

Hanna's  connection  with,  208,  209. 
Campbell,  Thomas,  241,  439. 
Canning,  366,  372. 
Carlyle,  326,  374,  375,  414,  417,  418, 

429,  430. 
Carroll,  Mitchell,  412. 
Carter,  J.  C,  176,  177. 
Catullus,  406. 
"Centennial  Celebration,"  the,  article 

on,  126,  127. 
Chadwick,  J.  W.,  47. 
Chamberlain,  Joseph,  182,  226. 
"Changes  in  Population,"  article  on, 

89-91. 
Chase,  Chief -Justice,  article  on,  114- 

16. 
Chaucer,  410. 
Child,  F.  J.,  47. 

China,  opening  of,  98;  Boxer  Rebel- 
lion in,  196-98. 
Cicero,  409. 


Cincinnati  Convention,  109.* . 

City  Club,  proper  work  of,  176-78. 

Civil-service  reform,  advocacy  of,  in 
first  number  of  Nation,  12;  Jenckes's 
connection  with,  55,  95;  reform  bill 
introduced  by  Jenckes,  95 ;  Gilman's 
connection  with,  385;  Schurz's  con- 
nection with,  385. 

"  Civil-Service  Reform  Near  at  Hand," 
article  on,  132-34. 

Clark,  L.  G.,  237,  240,  243. 

Clark,  W.  G.,  237. 

Clausius,  R.  J.  E.,  355. 

Clay,  Henry,  341. 

Clemens,  S.  L.  See  Mark  Twain. 

Cleveland,  Grover,  tariff  message  of, 
167;  Tammany's  support  of,  180; 
his  appointment  of  Van  Alen  to 
Italian  Mission,  180;  article  on,  by 
E.  L.  Godkin,  344-47;  appoints  Gil- 
man  member  of  Venezuela  Boundary 
Commission,  385;  Bragg's  speech 
on,  435;  quotation  from,  437. 

"Cleveland  and  Tammany,"  article 
on,  178-80. 

Coke,  Lord,  439. 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  272. 

Colonies,  experience  in  governing,  192- 
95. 

Columbia  University,  205-07. 

"Congressional  Fostering  of  Art," 
article  on,  150-52. 

Connolly,  R.  B.,  178. 

Constitution,  American,  311,  312. 

Cooper,  J.  F.,  237,  239,  241-43. 

Copyright  Bill,  vote  on,  170. 

Corporations,  paying  bribes  to  Tarn* 
many,  105. 

Coues,  Elliott,  49. 

"Counsel  of  Moderation,"  a,  article 
on,  92,  93. 

"Courage  in  Politics,"  article  on,  168- 
70. 

Cox,  J.  D.,  connection  with  Nation, 
45;  article  on  General  Sherman,  335- 
43. 

Crane,  T.  F.,  51. 

Croker,  Richard,  199,  200 

Cromer,  Lord,  226. . 


INDEX 


459 


Cuba,  part  of  in  Virginius  affair,  117; 

after  Spanish- American  War,  192. 
Curtis,  G.  W.,  182. 

Dall,  W.  H.,  51. 

"David  A.  Wells  and  his  Assailants," 

article  on,  100,  101. 
"Dawn  of  Brighter  Days,"  the,  ar- 
ticle on,  88,  89. 
"Death  of   the  Republican   Party," 
article  on,  175,  176. 

"Decision  of  the  Electoral  Commis- 
sion," the,  article  on,  130-32. 

Democratic  party,  114;  first  nomina- 
tion of  Bryan  by,  187-89;  atti- 
tude towards  tariff  of,  190-92;  de- 
prived of  only  issue  by  Republicans, 
220. 

Demosthenes,  409. 

Dennett,  J.  R.,  article  in  second  num- 
ber of  Nation,  13;  biographical  de- 
tails of,  13;  Nation  obituary,  13; 
tribute  to,  by  A.  G.  Sedgwick,  13, 
14;  articles  on  the  "South  as  It 
Is,"  13;  essay  on  "Knickerbocker 
Literature,"  237-44. 

DeQuincey,  408,  409. 

Derby,  Lord,  366. 

Descartes,  379. 

"Despised  Moral  Issue,"  the,  article 
on,  218,  219. 

Dicey,  A.  V.,  contributor  to  Nation, 
25;  tribute  to  Godkin,  63-68;  art- 
icle on  "English  View  of  American 
Conservatism,"  309-24. 

Dicey,  Edward,  London  correspon- 
dent of  Nation,  24;  on  imperialism, 
198. 

Dickens,  Charles,  240. 

Diderot,  284,  322,  323. 

Diplomatic  service,  American,  97-99. 

Disraeli.  See  Beaconsfield,  Lord. 

Dixon,  Hepworth,  316. 

Dole,  N.  H.,  427-41. 

Drake,  J.  R.,  237,  239,  241. 

Dryden,  440. 

Dufferin,  Lord,  181. 

"Duty  to  Mexico,"  our,  article  on, 
227,  228. 


Eaton,  D.  B.,  437. 

Eliot,  C.  W.,  contributor  to  Nation, 
50;  letter  to  E.  L.  Godkin,  56;  his 
opinion  of  Nation,  56;  opinion  on 
Johns  Hopkins  University,  386. 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  243.  413,  410,  122, 
425,  426. 

Emigration  to  South,  89,  90. 

"Enemies  of  Civilization,"  the,  art- 
icle on,  196-98. 

England,  part  of,  in  quelling  Boxer 
Rebellion,  198;  position  regarding 
neutrality  and  contraband,  259-64; 
attitude  towards  arms-dealing,  265- 
69;  responsible  government  in,  331- 
34. 

"English  Literature,"  Taine's,  art- 
icle on,  270-80. 

"English  View  of  American  Conser- 
vatism," an,  article  on,  309-24. 

Epictetus,  Mayor  Gaynor  on,  221-23. 

"Ethics  of  Campaign  Funds,"  the, 
article  on,  180-83. 

Euripides,  326,  440. 

Evarts,  W.  M.,  211. 

Evening  Post,  becomes  proprietor  of 
Nation,  42;  Bryce's  opinion  of,  57; 
centenary  of,  57. 

Ewing,  Thomas,  335,  336,  340. 

"Experience  in  Governing  Colonies," 
article  on,  192-95. 

"Familiar    Quotations,"    article    on, 

427-41. 
Faraday,  Michael,  298. 
Fay,  S.  B.,  52. 
Ferrero,  Guglielmo,  219. 
Fessenden,  Senator,  99,  169,  170. 
Field,  C.  W.,  95. 
Fifteenth   Amendment,    attempt    to 

nullify  the,  231-33. 
Fillmore,  Pres.,  288. 
Finck,  H.  T.,  51,  52. 
Firkins,  O.  W..  52. 
"First  Civil  Service  Reform  Bill,"  the, 

article  on,  95,  96. 
"First    Six     Months     of     President 

Cleveland's   Administration,"    the, 

article  on,  157,  158. 


460 


INDEX 


Fisher,  G.  P.,  49. 

Fiske,  John,  49,  50. 

Fiske,  Willard,  Italian  correspondent 
of  Nation,  24. 

Fite,  Warner,  52. 

Flag,  rights  of,  117-21. 

Foelker,  State-Senator,  218. 

Force  BUI,  175,  176. 

Foreign-born  citizens,  naturalization 
of,  97. 

Foster,  Michael,  350. 

Fowler,  Senator,  99.   i 

Fox,  C.  J.,  368,  372,  437. 

France,  105;  position  regarding  neu- 
trality and  contraband,  259-64; 
attitude  towards  arms-dealing,  265- 
69. 

Franco-Prussian  War,  104-06. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  321,  431,  432, 
434. 

Franklin,  Fabian,  connection  with 
Nation,  52;  article  on  D.  C.  Gil- 
man,  380-87. 

French  Revolution,  281,  285,  318, 
319. 

"Fresh  Phase  of  Indian  Question,"  a, 
article  on,  195,  196. 

Frothingham,  O.  B.,  14,  15. 

Fry,  Captain,  117. 

Fuller,  H.  deW.,  editor  of  Nation,  52. 

Galton,  Francis,  296. 

Gambetta,  286. 

Garrick,  431. 

Garrison,  W.  L.,  article  on,  303-08. 

Garrison,  W.  P.,  early  life,  6,  7;  be- 
comes Godkin's  associate,  6;  article 
on,  by  Lord  Bryce,  9;  relations  to 
W.  J.  Stillman,  23;  characteristics 
as  editor,  described  by  J.  H.  Mc- 
Daniels,  29;  tact  in  dealing  with 
writers,  30;  becomes  chief  editor  of 
Nation,  43;  his  choice  of  reviewers, 
49;  tribute  of  Godkin  to,  67;  obitu- 
ary on  Godkin,  58-63;  completes 
forty  years'  service  on  Nation,  77- 
78;  death  of,  78;  Nation's  obituary 
on,  78-79;  article  on  William  Lloyd 
Garrison,  303-08. 


Gaynor,  Mayor,  on  Epictetus,  221- 
23. 

"General  Garfield  and  the  Bosses," 
article  on,  143-45. 

Geneva  Tribunal,  55;  verdict  of.  111. 

George,  Henry,  200. 

German-Americans,  attitude  towards 
Administration,  269. 

Germany,  part  of,  in  quelling  Boxer 
Rebellion,  197;  198;  responsible 
government  in,  331-34. 

Gilbert,  W.  S..  430. 

Gildersleeve,  B.  L.,  contributions  to 
Nation  of,  50;  article  on  "The  (Edi- 
pus  Tyrannus  at  Harvard,"  325-30; 
connection  with  Johns  Hopkins, 
382. 

Gilman,  D.  C.,  article  on  Cornell  Uni- 
versity in  second  number  of  Nation, 
14;  tribute  to  Godkin,  68,  69;  article 
on,  380-87. 

Gladstone,  prediction  of,  concerning 
United  States,  184;  advocacy  of 
Home  Rule,  226;  on  oratory,  227; 
article  on,  by  Bryce,  356-73;  quo- 
tations from,  429. 

Godkin,  E.  L.,  early  life,  4,  5;  asso- 
ciates himself  with  Garrison,  6; 
article  on,  by  Lord  Bryce,  9;  letter 
to  Norton  about  first  number  of 
Nation,  13;  letter  to  Olmsted  on 
Nation's  prospects,  19;  difficulties 
experienced  in  Nation's  first  year, 
31;  becomes  proprietor  of  Nation, 
31;  letter  to  Norton  concerning 
Olmsted's  connection  with  Nation, 
32;  offered  by  Harvard  chair  of  his- 
tory, 40;  Lowell's  letter  advising 
against  acceptance  of  Harvard  pro- 
fessorship, 40-42;  becomes  one  of 
the  editors  of  Evening  Post,  4/2;  let- 
ter to  Norton  concerning  sale  of 
Nation  to  Evening  Post,  42;  his  es- 
timate of  Francis  Parkman,  47;  on 
militarism,  53;  on  first  twenty-five 
years  of  Nation,  53;  on  transforma- 
tion of  colleges,  55;  death  of,  56; 
letter  of  C.  W.  Eliot  to,  56;  tribute 
to  Garrison,  57;  Garrison's  obituary 


INDEX 


461 


on,  58-63;  A.  V.  Dicey's  tribute  to, 
63-68;  warfare  against  Tammany, 
68;  article  on  Tweed,  69-74;  on 
"Future  of  Tammany,"  75-77;  arti- 
cle on  "Neutrals  and  Contraband," 
259-64;  article  on  "A  Great  Exam- 
ple," 344-17. 

Goethe,  322,  402,  408,  480. 

Goodale,  G.  L.,  51. 

Goodwin,  W.  W.,  48. 

Gorringe,  H.  H.,  48,  49. 

Goschen,  G.  J.,  367. 

Grace,  Mayor,  200. 

Grant,  Mayor,  178. 

Grant,  U.  S.,  order  concerning  South- 
ern press,  92;  veto  of  inflation  bill, 
121;  third-term  agitation,  312,  313; 
Sherman's  connection  with,  340-43. 

Grattan,  Henry,  366. 

Gray,  Asa,  contributions  to  Nation  of, 
43,  44. 

Gray,  Thomas,  439. 

Great  Britain,  part  of,  in  quelling 
Boxer  Rebellion,  198;  position  re- 
garding neutrality  and  contraband, 
259-64;  attitude  towards  arms- 
dealing,  265-69. 

"Great  Example,"  a,  article  on,  344- 
47. 

Greek  Studies  in  America,  325-30. 

Greeley,  Horace,  109,  110. 

Griffis,  W.  E.,  51. 

Grimes,  Senator,  99, 169, 170. 

Griswold,  R.  W.,  238-40. 

"Growth  of  the  Labor  Controversy," 
article  on,  203-05. 

Gryzanowski,  E.,  25. 

Gurney,  E.  W.,  contribution  to  first 
number  of  Nation,  1 1 ;  biographical 
details  of,  11. 

Hall,  Fitzedward,  48,  49. 

Halleck,  Fitz  Greene,  237,  240,  241, 

243,  244. 
Halleck,  General,  337. 
Hamilton,  Alexander,  321. 
Hanna,  Senator,  207-10. 
"Hanna's  Public  Career,"  article  on, 
-    207-10. 


Harris,  J.  C,  430. 

Harrison,  President,  problems  con- 
fronting, 167,  168. 

Hart,  J.  M.,  51. 

Harte,  Bret,  211. 

Hawaii,  192. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  243. 

Hay,  John,  200;  article  on,  210-13. 

Hayes,  President,  307. 

"  Hayes-Tilden  Campaign,"  the,  arti- 
cle on,  128-30. 

Hegel,  354. 

Heilprin,  Angelo,  21. 

Heilprin,  Louis,  21. 

Heilprin,  Michael,  contributions  to 
Nation  of,  19,  20,  21;  biographical 
details  of,  20,  21;  Nation's  tribute 
to,  20;  article  on  "Natural  Boun- 
daries," 254-58. 

Heine,  402. 

Helmholtz,  Hermann,  article  on,  348- 
55. 

Henderson,  Senator,  99. 

Henry,  Joseph,  article  on,  296-303. 

Henry,  Patrick,  239. 

Hewitt,  A.  S.,  177,  183,  199,  200,  437. 

Higginson,  T.  W.,  47. 

High  Seas,  laws  of,  117-21. 

Hill,  D.  B.,  344,  346. 

Hillebrand,  Karl,  Florence  correspon- 
dent of  Nation,  24. 

Hoar,  Senator,  175,  176,  421. 

Hobart,  G.  A.,  189. 

Hoffman,  C.  F.,  237,  239. 

Holmes,  O.  W.,  422,  423. 

Holmes,  O.  W.,  Jr.,  314,  315. 

Hoist,  H.  von,  24. 

Hooker,  General,  337. 

Hooker,  Richard,  233. 

Horace,  435,  436. 

Hosmer,  J.  K.,  51. 

Howells,  W.  D.,  sketches  and  essays 
in  Nation,  21;  contributions  to  first 
volume,  21. 

Hughes,  C.  E.,  fight  against  race- 
track gambling  won  by,  218,  219; 
his  task  in  assuming  governorship, 
224. 

Hume,  320. 


462 


INDEX 


Immigration,  restriction  of,  162-65; 
importance  of,  to  South,  213-15. 

"Immigration  and  the  South,"  article 
on,  213-15. 

Impeachment,  President  Johnson's, 
99,  116. 

Income  tax,  collection  of,  101,  102. 

Indian  question,  fresh  phase  of,  195, 
196. 

Inflation  bill,  vetoed  by  President 
Grant,  121-23. 

Ingalls,  Senator,  174. 

International  copyright,  170-72. 

International  law  between  maritime 
nations,  117-21;  concerning  neu- 
trals and  contraband,  259-64. 

Irish  Home  Rule,  362,  370. 

Irving,  Washington,  237,  241,  244. 

Jackson,  Andrew,  189. 

James,  Henry,  11. 

James,  Henry,  Jr.,  contribution  to 
first  number  of  Nation,  11;  sketches 
and  essays  in  Nation,  21,  22. 

James,  William,  tribute  to  Chauncey 
Wright  in  Nation,  23;  contributions 
to  Nation  of,  44;  article  on  Herbert 
Spencer,  374-79. 

Jansen,  Cornelius,  283. 

Japan,  part  of,  in  quelling  Boxer  Re- 
bellion, 197. 

Jebb,  R.  C,  408,  409. 

Jenckes,  T.  A.,  55,  95. 

Jerome,  District  Attorney,  203. 

"Jingo  Morality,"  article  on,  185-87. 

Johns  Hopkins  University,  380-87. 

Johnson,  Andrew,  Nation  on  impeach- 
ment of,  54;  charges  against  mem- 
bers of  Congress  by,  93;  Nation  on, 
93;  ex-Senator  Ross's  letters  con- 
erning  acquittal  of,  168-70. 

Johnson,  Samuel,  278,  431. 

Jonson,  Ben,  278. 

Juvenal,  436. 

Kant,  349. 

Kapp,    Friedrich,    contributions    to 

Nation  of,  24;  Berlin  correspondent 

of  Nation,  24. 


Keats,  272. 
Kelly,  John,  180. 
Kent,  Chancellor,  314. 
"Knickerbocker   Literature,' 
on,  237-44. 


article 


Labor  question,  203-05. 

Lamar,  Justice,  231. 

Lamont,  Hammond,  editor  of  Nation, 
52. 

Lang,  Andrew,  409. 

Langdell,  C.  C,  314. 

Laugel,  Auguste,  Paris  correspondent 
of  Nation,  24;  biographical  details 
of,  24;  article  on  Morley's  "Rous- 
seau," 281-87. 

"Law  and  the  Facts  in  Louisiana," 
the,  article  on,  124-26. 

"Lawyer  and  the  Country,"  the,  arti- 
cle on,  223-25. 

Lea,  H.  C,  46. 

"Leaders  in  a  Democracy,"  article  on, 
225-27. 

Legal-Tender  decision,  103,  104,  122. 

"Lesson  of  the  Railroad  Strikes,"  the, 
article  on,  161,  162. 

Liberator,  the,  305,  306. 

Lieber,  Francis,  386. 

Life  insurance,  228-31 . 

Light-House  Board,  301,  302. 

Lincoln,  115,  226,  304,  338,  341,  430, 
437. 

Locke,  John,  379. 

Lodge,  H.  C,  200. 

Long,  J.  D.,  200. 

Longfellow,  name  in  list  of  contribu- 
tors to  Nation,  17;  friendship  for 
Norton,  414,  quotations  from,  429. 

Louis  XIV,  434. 

Lounsbury,  T.  R.,  contributions  to 
Nation  of,  22;  Article  on  Taine's 
"English  Literature,"  270-80. 

Lovejoy,  A.  0.,  52. 

Lowe,  Robert,  233,  366,  367. 

Lowell,  J.  R.,  letter  to  Godkin  about 
Nation,  September,  1866,  17;  letter 
to  Godkin  concerning  two  poems  for 
Nation,  17,  18;  poetic  and  prose 
contributions,  18,  19;  letter  to  God- 


INDEX 


463 


kin  advising  against  his  acceptance 
of  Harvard  professorship,  40-42; 
his  opinion  of  Earl  Shinn,  48;  recti- 
tude of,  182;  friendship  for  Norton, 
414,  416;  quotations  from,  433,  440. 

"Lowell's  Official  Career,"  article  on, 
155-57. 

Lowell,  R.  T.  S.,  48. 

Lundy,  Benjamin,  304. 

Macaulay,  366,  429,  437,  439. 

MacDonald,  William,  contributor  to 
Nation,  52;  article  on  "The  Cali- 
fornia Expositions,"  442-54. 

MacDowell,  E.  A.,  205-07. 

Mach,  Ernst,  349. 

Mackail,  J.  W.,  413. 

Madero,  President,  227. 

Mahan,  A.  T.,  on  American  naval 
power,  185-87. 

"Making  Life  Insurance  do  the  Most 
Good,"  article  on,  228-31. 

Mario,  Jessie  White,  Italian  correspon- 
dent of  Nation,  24. 

"Mark  Twain,"  article  on,  388-400; 
408. 

Marsh,  G.  P.,  contribution  to  first 
number  of  Nation,  11;  biographical 
details  of,  11;  subsequent  articles, 
11,  12;  death  of,  12. 

Marshall,  Chief -Justice,  116. 

Mather,  Cotton,  238. 

Mather,  F.  J.,  Jr.,  52. 

Maxwell,  J.  C,  352,  353. 

Mayer,  Robert,  349. 

"Meaning  of  American  Naturaliza- 
tion," the,  article  on,  97. 

Melbourne,  Lord,  372. 

Metcalf,  Secretary,  215. 

"Mexican  Troubles,"  our,  article  on, 
134-36. 

Mexico,  our  duty  toward,  227,  228; 
War  of  1846,  336. 

Militarism,  Nation  on,  53. 

Milton,  279,  438. 

"Mind  and  Manners  of  the  Silver- 
Man,"  the,  article  on,  136-38. 

Mitchell,  D.  G.,  243. 

Moliere,  434. 


Moltke,  322. 

"Momentous  Decision,"  a,  article  on, 

231-33. 
Montaigne,  407. 
Montesquieu,  284. 
Moody,  W.  H.,  200. 
Moore,  C.  H.,  51. 
Moore,  Thomas,  239,  240. 
"Morality    of    Arms-Dealing,"    the, 

article  on,  265-69. 
More,  P.  E.,  contributor  to  Nation, 

52;  editor  of  Nation,  52;  article  on 

"Letters  of  Charles  Eliot  Norton," 

414-26. 
"Morley's  Rousseau,"  article  on,  281- 

87. 
Mormonism,  316,  317. 
Morris,  G.  P.,  243. 
Morse,  S.  F.  B.,  297,  298,  302. 
Morton,  O.  P.,  54. 
Mugwumps,  191,  344. 
Municipal  government,  111-14. 
Musset,  Alfred  de,  276. 
McClintock,  Emory,  230. 
McDaniels,  J.  H.,  "Life  and  Letters 

of  W.  P.  Garrison,"  29. 
McKim,  J.  M.,  co-founder  of  Nation, 

6. 
McKinley,  William,  Democrats  vot- 
ing for,   189;   Hanna's  connection 

with,  208,  209. 
McReynolds,  Justice,  231. 

Napoleon,  Bonaparte,  quotation  from, 
439,  440. 

Napoleon,  Louis,  104,  435. 

Nation,  first  number,  1;  project  dis- 
cussed by  Norton  and  Olmsted,  6; 
prospectus  of,  7,  8;  article  on  by 
Lord  Bryce,  9;  Norton's  early  serv- 
ices to,  10;  principal  contributors 
to  first  number  of,  10,  11;  advocacy 
of  Civil-Service  Reform  in  first 
number  of,  12;  second  number  of, 
13;  Lowell's  comment  on,  17;  circu- 
lation reaches  5000,  19;  foreign  cor- 
respondence of,  24,  25;  obstacles  in 
first  year,  31;  stockholders  of,  31; 
becomes  property  of  E.  L.  Godkin 


464 


INDEX 


&  Co.,  31 ;  Olmsted's  part  in  editing, 
32;  article  showing  its  candor,  33, 
34,  35;  article  repudiating  charge  of 
being  un-American,  35-40;  facing  a 
crisis,  1870,  40;  passes  into  the  pro- 
prietorship of  Evening  Post,  42; 
Garrison  becomes  chief  editor,  43; 
its  course  after  consolidation  with 
Evening  Post,  43 ;  cultivates  relations 
with  specialists,  48;  Hammond  La- 
mont,  editor  of,  52;  Paul  Elmer 
More,  editor  of,  52;  Harold  deWolf 
Fuller,  editor  of,  52;  on  militarism, 
53;  "Retrospect"  of  first  twenty- 
five  years,  53;  opposes  greenback 
theory,  54;  discusses  Alabama  case, 
55;  Godkin  on  transformation  of 
colleges,  55;  warfare  against  Tam- 
many, 68;  on  Tweed,  69-74;  on 
"Future  of  Tammany,"  75-77;  Gar- 
rison completes  forty  years'  service, 
77-78;  obituary  on  Garrison,  78- 
79;  Ogden's  article  on  Semi-Cen- 
tennial of,  79-83;  on  national  prob- 
lems at  time  of  its  first  appearance, 
87;  weekly  comments,  87-233;  Rep- 
resentative Essays,  237-454. 

"Nation  and  the  Cleveland  Scandal," 
the,  article  on,  152-54. 

"Natural  Boundaries,"  article  on, 
254-58. 

Naturalization,  97. 

Naval  power,  American,  discussed  by 
Mahan,   185-87. 

"Neutrals  and  Contraband,"  article 
on,  259-64. 

Newcomb,  Simon,  contributions  to 
Nation  of,  44,  45;  article  on  Joseph 
Henry,  296-303. 

New  England,  changes  in  population 
of,  90,  91. 

"New  Era  in  American  Manufactur- 
ing," a,  article  on,  183-85. 

Newman,  Cardinal,  360. 

Nicolay,  J.  G.,  212. 

Niebuhr,  322. 

Nietzsche,  402,  407,  408. 

Norton,  Andrews,  423. 

Norton,  C.  E.,  discusses  Nation  pro- 


ject, 6;  early  services  to  Nation,  10; 
contribution  to  first  number,  10; 
subsequent  articles,  10;  letter  to 
Godkin  concerning  Emerson's  opin- 
ion of  Nation,  33;  Letters  of,  414-26. 

Norton,  Grace,  51. 

Nott,  C.  C,  connection  with  Nation, 
50,  51;  article  on  Charles  Sumner, 
288-95. 

Noyes,  A.  D.,  connection  with  Nation, 
52;  article  on  "Familiar  Quota- 
tions," 427-41. 

O'Connell,  Daniel,  372. 

"GMipus  Tyrannus  at  Harvard,"  the, 
article  on,  325-30. 

Ogden,  Rollo,  first  contribution  to 
Nation  of,  52;  article  on  Nation's 
Semi-Centennial,  79-83. 

Olmsted,  F.  L.,  discusses  Nation  pro- 
ject, 6;  death,  6;  associate  editor  of 
Nation,  31 ;  Godkin's  letter  to  Nor- 
ton concerning  him,  32. 

"Optimists  and  Pessimists,"  article 
on,  172-74. 

Ord,  General,  337. 

Osborn,  R.  D.,  Lt .-Colonel,  contribu- 
tor to  Nation,  25. 

Palfrey,  F.  W.,  contributions  to  Na- 
tion of,  48;  Garrisons  opinion  of,  48. 

Palmerston,  Lord,  364,  365. 

Panama  Canal,  Hay's  project  con- 
cerning the,  213. 

Panama-Pacific  Exposition,  442-54. 

Parker,  A.  B.,  on  Republican  tariff 
revision,  220,  221. 

Parker,  Theodore,  437. 

Parkman,  Francis,  contributions  to 
Nation  of,  47;  Godkin's  estimate  of, 
47;  article  on  "The  Tale  of  the 
Ripe  Scholar,"  245-53. 

"Party  and  Other  Morality,"  article 
on,  170-72. 

Pascal,  283. 

Pater,  Walter,  409. 

Paulding,  J.  K.,  237-39,  241. 

Payson,  Congressman,  171. 

Peel,  Robert,  361,  362,  366,  372. 


INDEX 


465 


Peirce,  C.  S.,  contributions  to  Nation 
of,  50;  biographical  details  of,  50; 
article  on  Helmholtz,  348-55. 

Petronius,  327. 

Philippines,  192,  197. 

Phillips,  Wendell,  stockholder  of  Na- 
tion, 31 ;  funeral  discourse  on  W.  L. 
Garrison,  303;  quotation  from,  438. 

"  Philosophers  and  Guides,"  article  on, 
221-23. 

Pitt,  William,  366,  372. 

Pitt,  William,  the  elder,  433. 

Pittsburgh  Landing,  340. 

Plato,  406,  409,  413. 

Pliny,  406. 

Plunket,  W.  C.,  366. 

Pollard,  E.  A.,  92. 

Pomeroy,  J.  N.,  49. 

Pope,  Alexander,  272,  274. 

Population,  changes  in,  89. 

Porson,  Richard,  328. 

Porter,  Noah,  15. 

Porto  Rico,  192. 

Potter,  Bishop,  Phi  Beta  Kappa  ad- 
dress of,  172. 

"President  Arthur's  Problems,"  ar- 
ticle on,  145-47. 

"President  Grant's  Veto,"  article  on, 
121-23. 

Private  property,  rights  of,  in  war,  94. 

"  Problems  Confronting  President 
Harrison,"  the,  article  on,  167,  168. 

"Proper  Work  of  the  City  Club,"  the, 
article  on,  176-78. 

Prussia,  105,  106;  position  regarding 
neutrality  and  contraband,  259-64; 
attitude  towards  arms-dealing,  265- 
69. 

"Public  Reception  of  Mr.  Greeley's 
Nomination,"  the,  article  on,  109, 
110. 

Quay,  M.  S.,  345. 

Quincy,  Edmund,  contributor  to  Na- 
tion, 18;  Lowell's  poem  in  Nation 
on,  18. 

Racine,  275. 

Railroads,  tyranny  of,  106-09. 


Reconstruction,  53,  54,  93. 

Remsen,  Ira,  382. 

Republican  party,  responsibility  of,  for 
national  finances,  167,  168;  article 
on  "Death  of,"  175,  176;  devotion 
to  tariff,  190-92;  reduces  tariff,  220, 
221;  Cleveland  tariff  message  and, 
344-47. 

"Republican  Tariff  Reduction,"  arti- 
cle on,  220,  221. 

"Responsible  Government  in  Ger- 
many," article  on,  331-34. 

"Restricting  Immigration,"  article  on, 
162-65. 

"Result  of  the  Impeachment  Trial," 
the,  article  on,  99,  100. 

"Resumption,"  article  on,  138-40. 

"  Retrospect "  of  Nation's  first  twenty- 
five  years,  53. 

"Revolt  of  the  Merchants  against  the 
Tyranny  of  the  Railroads,"  the,  ar- 
ticle on,  106-09. 

"Rewards  of  Public  Service,"  article 
on,  200-03. 

Richardson,  Samuel,  272. 

Richelieu,  Cardinal,  285. 

Riemann,  G.  F.  B.,  353. 

Robespierre,  286. 

Rogers,  Samuel,  240. 

Rood,  O.  N.,  354. 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  doctor's  disser- 
tation of  at  Harvard,  200-03;  atti- 
tude of,  toward  Hughes,  218;  quota- 
tions from,  430. 

Root,  Elihu,  200. 

Ropes,  J.  C,  48. 

Rosebery,  Lord,  226. 

Ross,  Senator,  99,  168-70. 

Rousseau,  281-87,  322. 

Rowland,  II.  A.,  354. 

Royce,  Josiah,  383. 

Ruskin,  408,  409,  414. 

Russell,  Lord,  312. 

Sainte-Beuve,  414. 
Sanderson,  John,  237,  238. 
Sands,  R.  C,  237. 
San  Francisco,  442-54. 
Sanitary  Commission,  88,  89. 


466 


INDEX 


Schiller,  322. 

Schopenhauer,  402. 

Schurz,  Carl,  becomes  editor  of  Eve- 
ning Post,  42;  article  on  "Responsi- 
ble Government  in  Germany,"  331- 
34;  president  of  National  Civil- 
Service  Reform  League,  385. 

Schuyler,  Eugene,  contributions  to 
Nation  of,  22,  23;  biographical  de- 
tails of,  23,  24. 

Scott,  General,  336. 

Scott,  Walter,  239,  241,  322. 

Sedgwick,  A.  G.,  article  in  Semi-Cen- 
tennial number  of  Nation,  13,  14; 
contribution  to  third  number  of 
Nation,  15;  biographical  details  of, 
15,  16;  death,  15;  Brownell's  trib- 
ute to,  17. 

Semi-Centennial  of  Nation,  Ogden's 
article  on,  79-83. 

Seminole  War,  336. 

Semmes,  Raphael,  94. 

Seneca,  440. 

Seward,  W.  H.,  115,  438. 

Seymour,  Horatio,  189. 

Shakespeare,  275,  278,  279,  432,  440. 

Shepard,  E.  M.,  198-200. 

Sherman,  General,  article  on,  335-43. 

Sherman,  John,  338,  341. 

Sherman,  S.  P.,  contributor  to  Nation, 
52;  article  on  Mark  Twain,  388-400. 

Shinn,  Earl,  connection  with  Nation, 
48;  Lowell's  opinion  of,  48. 

Shorey,  Paul,  article  on  "American 
Scholarship,"  401-13. 

Silver  agitation,  55,  188. 

Smith,  Edmund,  431. 

Smith,  Goldwin,  connection  with  Na- 
tion, 49;  on  British- Americans, 
165-67. 

Smith,  Sidney,  240,  322. 

Smithson,  James,  299. 

Socialism,  attitude  of  Bismarck  to- 
ward, 331. 

"Some  Noteworthy  Facts  about  the 
Forty-Fifth  Congress,"  article  on, 
140-42. 

Sophocles,  326,  329. 

Southern  question,  87,  92, 93, 121, 122. 


Spanish-American  War,  colonies  ac- 
quired through,  192;  yellow  journals 
and,  215-17. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  article  on,  374-79. 

"Spirited  Foreign  Policy,"  a,  article 
on,  148,  149. 

Stanbery,  Henry,  335. 

Stanton,  E.  M.,  115. 

Stearns,  Major,  stockholder  of  Nation, 
31. 

Stein,  Baron,  322. 

Stephen,  Leslie,  417. 

Sterne,  Laurence,  272. 

Stevenson,  R.  L.,  429. 

Stillman,  W.  J.,  contributor  to  Na- 
tion, 22;  biographical  details  of,  22, 
23. 

Stokes,  G.  G.,  353. 

Story,  Joseph,  314. 

Sturgis,  Russell,  contribution  to  third 
number  of  Nation  of,  17;  biographi- 
cal details  of,  17. 

Sumner,  Charles,  97;  article  on,  288- 
95;  Carlyle's  judgment  of,  418; 
quotation  from,  437. 

Sumner,  W.  G.,  contributions  to  Na- 
tion of,  46. 

Supreme  Court  decision,  in  Legal- 
Tender  case,  103, 104, 122;  on  Civil- 
Rights  Act,  169,  176;  in  Case  of 
Oklahoma  franchise  law,  231-33. 

Swift,  239. 

Swinburne,  435. 

Sylvester,  J.  J.,  384. 

Tacitus,  436,  440. 

Taft,  W.  H.,  200;  holds  Republicans 
to  their  tariff  pledges,  220,  221 ;  atti- 
tude toward  Mexico,  227,  228. 

"Taine's  English  Literature,"  article 
on,  270-80. 

"Tale  of  the  'Ripe  Scholar,'  "  the, 
article  on,  245-53. 

Tammany,  Nation's  warfare  against, 
68;  causes  Godkin's  arrest,  68;  fu- 
ture of,  75-77;  fails  to  nominate 
Chase,  114;  Hewitt's  plan  of  fight- 
ing, 177;  the  City  Club  and,  177, 
178;  Cleveland  and,  178-80;  a  tariff 


INDEX 


467 


and,   192;   nominates   Edward   M. 
Shepard,  198-200. 

"Tammany  and  'Respectability,'  " 
article  on,  198-200. 

Tariff,  100,  167;  of  1894  goes  into 
effect,  183-85;  devotion  of  Republi- 
can party  to,  190-92;  reduced  by 
Republicans,  220,  221;  Cleveland's 
message  on,  34,4,  345. 

"Tariff  and  the  City,"  the,  article  on, 
190-92. 

Taussig,  F.  W.,  51. 

Taxation,  manner  of,  96. 

Taylor,  Bayard,  211. 

Taylor,  General,  336. 

Tennyson,  274,  276,  410. 

"'The  People'  and  the  Municipal 
Government,"  article  on,  111-14. 

Thompson,  J.  P.,  contribution  to 
second  number  of  Nation,  15;  bio- 
graphical details  of,  15. 

Thoreau,  429. 

Thurlow,  Lord,  439. 

Tientsin,  barbarities  committed  at, 
197. 

Tilden,  S.  J.,  183,  189. 

Tocqueville,  de,  285. 

Todd,  David,  51. 

Towse,  J.  R.,  52. 

Toy,  C.  H.,  51. 

"Transit  of  Idealism,"  a,  article  on, 
205-07. 

Trumbull,  Senator,  99. 

Trusts,  204,  205. 

Tuckerman,  H.  T.,  243. 

Turgot,  434. 

Tweed,  W.  M.,  Godkin's  article  on, 
69-74. 

United  States,  position  concerning 
neutrality  and  contraband,  259-64; 
attitude  towards  arms-dealing,  265- 
69;  Constitution  of,  311,  312. 

Van    Alen,    appointment   to    Italian 

Mission  of,  180. 
Van  Winkle,  Senator,  99. 
"Verdict  at  Geneva,"  the,  article  on, 

111. 


Vergil,  327,  409. 

Yrrplanck,  G.  C,  239. 

Vicksburg,  342. 

Villard,  Henry,  contribution  to  third 
number  of  Nation  of,  17;  acquires 
control  of  the  Evening  Post,  42. 

Villard,  O.  G.,  on  change  in  the  owner- 
ship of  Nation,  42,  43. 

Villiers,  C.  P.,  362. 

Virginius,  the,  article  on,  117-21. 

Voltaire,  275,  281,  322,  323,  434,  440. 

Walpole,  Horace,  437,  439. 

Waring,  G.  E.,  connection  with  Na- 
tion, 47. 

Warton,  Thomas,  272. 

Washington,  George,  321,  434. 

"Way  the  Income  Tax  Ought  to  be 
Collected,"  the,  article  on,  101, 
102. 

Wayland,  Francis,  contributor  to  Na- 
tion, 22. 

Webb,  Alfred,  Dublin  correspondent 
of  Nation,  25. 

Webster,  Daniel,  292,  366,  433,  438. 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  372. 

Wells,  D.  A.,  connection  with  Nation, 
46;  assailed  in  Congress,  100. 

Western  States,  emigration  to,  90,  91. 

Wheatstone,  Charles,  298. 

Whipple,  E.  P.,  424. 

White,  Chief-Justice,  231,  232. 

White,  Horace,  becomes  one  of  the 
editors  of  the  Evening  Post,  42;  con- 
nection with  Nation,  51. 

Whitman,  Walt,  429. 

Whitney,  W.  D.,  22. 

Whittier,  poem  in  Nation,  Dec.  7, 
1865,  17. 

Wilamowitz-Moellendorf,  408. 

Wilder,  B.  G.,  51. 

William  I,  of  Germany,  105,  331-34. 

Williams,  S.  W.,  49. 

Willis,  N.  P.,  237,  239,  242,  243. 

Wilson,  Woodrow,  address  of,  on 
"The  Lawyer  in  Politics,"  223-25; 
his  purpose  of  going  to  the  people, 
225-27;  attitude  toward  Mexico, 
228. 


468 


INDEX 


Winlock,  Joseph,  Lowell's  poem  on, 

in  Nation,  18. 
Wood,  Leonard,  200,  201. 
Woodberry,  G.  E.,  205-07. 
Woodhull,  A.  A.,  51. 
Wordsworth,  274,  280,  322. 
"Working  up  a  War,"  article  on,  215- 

17. 


Wright,  Chauncey,  contributor  to 
Nation,  22,  23;  biographical  details 
of,  23;  tribute  of  William  James  to, 
23. 

Wyman,  Jeffries,  Lowell's  poem  on,  in 
Nation,  18. 

Young,  Thomas,  352. 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .   S   .  A 


SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILTY 

405  Hilgard  Avenue,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90024-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library 

from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


Form  L it 


a 


in  ii  i  ii  ii  ii  ii  ii ii mi  mi  ii 

AA    000  409  939    6 


Mini1 


